How to Make a Gin-Gin Mule, the Ginger-Lime Cocktail That Helped People Fall in Love With Gin Again
The Gin-Gin Mule was created as the solution to a problem.
Here was the problem: As difficult as it may be for us wizened veterans of the cocktail zeitgeist to understand, the issue, in the year 2000, was gin. Specifically, that no one drank it, and no one wanted to.
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The turn of the millennium is when vodka was at the apex of its cultural power. Vodka had overtaken gin in popularity by 1967, but by 2000 had fully usurped it, like Claudius to King Hamlet—occupied its position, married its wife, and taken control of its lands. Cocktails like the Gimlet that had long been understood as gin stalwarts were treated as vodka drinks by default. This happened over and over: Vodka French 75s. Vodka tonics. Vodka Collins’. Even the mighty Martini, gin’s seemingly impenetrable fortress, was so conquered by vodka that it was then (and still for many is today) a surprising piece of trivia that the Martini was exclusively a gin drink for the first 50 years of its life.
Into this Cosmo-tinted reality walks Audrey Saunders. Saunders was one of the earliest and most talented leaders of the mixology renaissance and in 2000 was working at a place called Beacon and had begun to see gin as something of a cause. She wanted to make the best tasting drinks she could, and a lot of times, that means gin. Gin is, after all, a cocktail spirit; distillers have been evolving gin specifically to form the backbone of cocktails for well over a century, and a single sip of a properly made gin drink is very often all that’s required to persuade a drinker of its inherent quality—convincing someone that gin is good for cocktails is like convincing someone that cheese is good for sandwiches. All Saunders needed was a way in.
The Gin-Gin Mule is that way in: A cocktail so alluring, so irrepressibly delicious, and so complementary to gin’s inherent gifts that any- and everyone who tried it would be as convinced of the spirit’s abilities as she was. Inspired by a proper Mojito, she recruited fresh mint, which harmonizes with gin’s inherent herbaceousness. Lime and simple syrup echoed the satisfying push and pull of a proper Gimlet, and a splash of homemade ginger beer gave a spice that lingers on the palate, a compelling closing argument for cocktails with fresh ingredients. It was, of course, a hit. She took it with her from bar to bar until she opened her own, the revolutionary Pegu Club, in 2005, where the Gin-Gin Mule was on the opening menu. It converted vodka-philes by the legion, which was good because when Pegu Club opened, there wasn’t a bottle of vodka in the building.
Twenty years on, and the Gin-Gin Mule is just as good now as it was then. We have of course overcome our collective gin-phobia, the aforementioned “problem” now a distant memory, but when the solution is as toe-curlingly delicious as the Gin-Gin Mule, it really couldn’t matter less. The war is over, but the treasures remain.
Gin-Gin Mule
2 oz. gin
0.75 oz. lime juice
0.75 oz. ginger syrup
2-3 oz. soda
6-8 leaves fresh mint
Add mint, gin, lime, and ginger syrup to a cocktail shaker with ice, and shake good and hard for six to eight seconds. Strain into a tall glass over fresh ice, top with soda, and garnish with a mint sprig.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS
Gin: Saunders uses Tanqueray, which is perfectly nice. Plainly, there is no gin that won’t work here. Ginger, mint, and lime are universal donors to gin. Use whatever is most easily at hand.
Ginger / Build: How to get ginger into this cocktail is the big question, and there are three different answers. The above is the spiciest and punchiest, and the one I most prefer. It’s also the most work—making ginger syrup is a bit of a pain in the ass no matter how you do it—but if you’re a big fan of the freshness and spice, there’s no substitute. See our discussion at the bottom of the Kentucky Buck article if you want to know how.
The other way is to use ginger beer as a sole sweetener, as you would with a Moscow Mule. For this, you’d do 2 oz. gin, only 0.5 oz. lime juice, and mint, shake those, then strain and top with what should end up being 4 to 5 oz. ginger beer. This is easiest. The downside is that it won’t be as cold (you don’t shake ginger beer because it’s carbonated) and that ginger beers vary in sweetness levels, so unless you’re very familiar with your ingredients, it’ll have to be a bit of trial and error.
The third way is how Saunders initially made the drink, a hybrid model. She did the following:
1.5 oz. gin
1 oz. simple syrup
0.75 oz. lime juice
6-8 mint leaves
1 oz. ginger beer
And she shook the whole thing together, carbonation be damned. This is OK, though the quantity of sweetness feels a bit dated. This is the recipe you’ll find on the internet, and I don’t all the way advise it, if for no other reason than for this to taste like ginger at all, you’ll have to do what she did and make your own ginger beer out of fresh ginger root. At 1 oz, the bottled stuff won’t do. And if you’re making your own ginger beer, why not just go all the way and make a syrup?
That’s my rationale, anyway. Make it however you like. The Gin-Gin Mule is a sweet/sour balanced collection of the flavors of gin, ginger, lime, mint, and effervesce, get there however makes most sense to you.
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