Conversion therapy.

Gin Gin Mule

How many times have you heard a guest say,”I don’t like gin/rum/whisky”? These pre-existing dislikes are often based on bad experiences long ago with iffy examples of those spirits and should be seen as something of a challenge. These people are just dying to be converted, even if they don’t know it yet. Therefore we should have a few “conversion” drinks up our sleevies for such occasions and the Gin Gin Mule is the perfect example.

The Gin Gin Mule was created by Audrey Saunders in the early naughties in New York. But Audrey wasn’t just in the business of converting gin haters she was at the forefront of bringing cocktails out of the nascent cocktail revival and unto the masses. Until Audrey Saunders happened the new cocktail movement was very much an underground affair confined to a handful of tiny speakeasy bars and elitist lounges but in 2005 Audrey’s full scale Pegu Club bar in SoHo (not Rangoon) dragged it out into the light, held it up by the toes and shook it around for everyone to see. And the rest is history. Saunders ran a slick operation and only hired the most talented staff and as a consequence there are remarkably few modern big name American cocktail bars and bartenders that don’t have some connection back to the early days of the Pegu. Anyhows – enough ramble – there be gin-haters to convert! Once more unto the breach, dear friends…

The Gin Gin Mule is basically a mash up of the Moscow Mule (a bullshit schlocktail that won’t be seeing the light of day on these pages) and the Glory that is the Mojito. With gin. The recipe below is the original version which Audrey created using a home-made ginger beer (we might come to that in future) but if using a commercial ginger beer (which tend to be quite sweet) I’d suggest slicing the sugar syrup down to a scant 0.75oz as a starting point but, as always we should be tweaking the balance to suit the ingredients.  While the GG Mule doesn’t sound terribly sophisticated (and I have some concerns about the name*) it’s the way that the gin interacts with the other ingredients that is the real genius. When the ginger/mint/botanical balance is right you’ll have those gin haters eating out of the palm of your hand.

Gin Gin Mule

1.75oz / 52ml Tanqueray gin (or similar).

0.75oz / 22ml fresh lime juice.

1oz / 30 ml simple (1:1) syrup – but see above text!

6 mint leaves.

1oz / 30 ml ginger beer (not ginger ale).

Gently muddle the mint, lime juice and syrup in the bottom of your shaker. Try not to break up the mint leaves. Add ice, gin and the ounce of ginger beer. Shake gently so as not to break up the mint leaves**. Pour unstrained into an iced Collins glass. Top up with a little more ginger beer (optional) and garnish with a mint sprig. Apply to gin haters and observe conversion thereof.

Toast Audrey Saunders.

*Gin for gin, Gin for ginger, yet Mule already tells us about the ginger beer. Too much redundancy IMHO.

**Really, try not to break up the mint leaves too much.