This Summer's Drink of Choice: The Moscow Mule

Last summer it was the Tom Collins, a refreshing summer drink, but this summer I've moved on to the equally refreshing Moscow Mule. As you can see by these ads from the 60's, featuring Woody Allen (left) and Robert Morse (right), lately of Mad Men fame, that the Mule was served traditionally in frosty copper mugs.

The recipe is simple: Just remember 1-2-3. 1 part Rose's Lime Juice, 2 parts vodka, and 3 parts ginger beer.

In an attempt to revive the popularity of vodka in the late 1950s, manufacturers were thinking of creative ways to overcome the stigma of a liquor long associated with communist Russia. In the midst of the cold war and the space race, Americans were shunning vodka and sales, although never as high as whisky in this country, were slumping. It wasn't until the mid-60s and the advent, and help, of James Bond, who order vodka martinis "shaken, not stirred" in the Bond movies that started in 1963 that sales started to revive.

The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues by John Strausbaugh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One of the better books of New York history I've read in a few years. It's actually the second book I've read in the past year about a specific neighborhood, the first being Laurel Canyon, another interesting read.

Although the books covers a lot of ground, it does give short shrift to some interesting aspects of Greenwich Village history, most notably the Off-Off Broadway shows Three Penny Opera and The Fastasticks, which had a profound impact on, not only New York, but the rest of the country. There is only a mention of the cast of Three Penny Opera and nothing of the music.

The paragraph on the Fantasticks was a complete missed opportunity. Not only was the name misspelled--without the "k"--which could have been the result of over-zealous editing--but it only got slightly more attention than Three Penny Opera. Strausbaugh mentions one song, "Try to Remember," in addition to the cast and the fact that it was the longest running show in New York History.

He neglects to mention the fact that the show itself was a victim of 9/11, with the line "Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh, so mellow," which New Yorkers and its few visitors in the aftermath found to poignant a reminder of the city before the disaster. To mention that would have helped fill another void in the book, that of the impact of the 9/11 tragedy on the neighborhood. It gets less attention than Robert Moses' attempt to run an expressway through it.

To a non-New Yorker these things might seem trivial, but the majority of his readership will likely be New Yorkers. But, since its strengths far outweigh it weaknesses, I'll still give it five stars.



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