Ginger beer, lime and a copper mug, for the book where everything goes to war.
I have finished A Court of Mist and Fury on GraphicAudio and gone straight into A Court of Wings and Ruin, which is the one where the whole thing stops being a romance with a war in the background and becomes a war with a romance in it. Book two was Velaris and starlight. Book three is Illyrian camps, mountain storms and people sharpening things.
So the drink had to change temperature. Last week was shimmer and violet. This one is a mule: vodka, a lot of fresh lime and properly fiery ginger beer, served ice cold in a copper mug so the outside frosts over while the inside burns slightly. Cold in your hand, hot in your throat, which is roughly the mood of the book.
It also happens to be the correct drink to put next to a plate of Illyrian Wings, because ginger and lime cut through fat and chilli better than almost anything else you could pour. Full alcohol-free version below, and with a mule that version is genuinely excellent rather than a consolation.
A gentle note: ACOTAR gets considerably spicier and more violent from book two onward, and book three has a war in it, with the losses that implies. My romantasy starter guide covers the reading order, and the spice level guide explains what my chillies actually mean.
What you will need
Makes 1 drink (scale up easily for book club, see the notes).
Illyrian Storm Mule
- 60ml vodka
- 30ml fresh lime juice, which is about one whole lime
- 120ml spicy ginger beer, chilled, the cloudy kind with actual heat
- 2 thin slices of fresh ginger
- Plenty of ice, the bigger the cubes the better
- A lime wedge and a sprig of mint, to garnish
- A copper mug if you have one, a tall glass if you do not
Illyrian Storm alcohol-free mule
- 60ml non-alcoholic spirit, or 60ml cold black tea brewed strong
- 30ml fresh lime juice
- 150ml spicy ginger beer, chilled
- 2 thin slices of fresh ginger
- A dash of soda water
- Plenty of ice
- A lime wedge and a sprig of mint, to garnish
Method
Step 1: Get the mug properly cold
Put your copper mug in the freezer for ten minutes before you start, or fill it with ice and water and tip it out when you are ready. Copper conducts temperature faster than glass, which is the entire reason a mule is served in one, and a warm mug wastes that.
Step 2: Bruise the ginger
Drop the two slices of fresh ginger into the bottom of the mug and press them once or twice with the end of a spoon. You are not muddling them to a pulp, just cracking them open so they give up some heat into the drink. This is the step most mule recipes skip and it is the difference between a mule that tastes of ginger beer and one that tastes of ginger.
Step 3: Lime first, then vodka
Squeeze in the lime juice and add the vodka. Use fresh lime, not the bottled stuff. There are three ingredients in this drink and two of them are fresh, so bottled lime juice has nowhere to hide and it tastes faintly of cordial.
Step 4: Ice, then ginger beer
Fill the mug right to the top with ice, then pour the chilled ginger beer over it slowly. Ice first matters. Pouring fizz onto ice keeps the bubbles; pouring ice into fizz knocks them straight out. Stir once, gently, and stop.
Step 5: Garnish and drink it cold
Squeeze the lime wedge over the top and drop it in, add the mint if you are using it, and drink it while the outside of the mug is still frosted. A mule is at its best in the first five minutes and merely fine after fifteen.
Cosy Kitchen Notes
The ginger beer is the whole drink. If you take one thing from this, take that. There are three ingredients and one of them is most of the volume, so a sweet, mild supermarket ginger beer gives you a sweet, mild mule. Buy the cloudy sort that lists real ginger and actually stings a little. It costs a couple of dollars more and it changes the entire result.
Ginger beer, not ginger ale. They are not interchangeable. Ginger ale is a soft drink flavoured with ginger. Ginger beer is brewed and has a proper bite. A mule made with ginger ale is a vodka lime soda wearing a costume.
Big ice, not crushed. Large cubes melt slowly and keep the drink cold without watering it down. Crushed ice looks the part for about ninety seconds and then turns your mule into a puddle.
Make it for book club. Do not batch the ginger beer. Mix the vodka, lime juice and bruised ginger in a jug ahead of time, keep it in the fridge, then pour that over ice in each mug and top with ginger beer to order. Everything except the fizz can be done hours early, and the fizz takes four seconds.
About the copper mug. It is not only decoration. Copper takes on the cold of the drink almost instantly, so the mug itself feels freezing in your hand and the first sip reads as colder than it is. That said, unlined copper and very acidic drinks are not a great long-term combination, so use mugs with a stainless or nickel lining, which is what almost everything sold now has. A tall glass works perfectly well if you would rather not buy anything.
Sober-curious swap. This is one of the easiest drinks to make alcohol-free convincingly, because the ginger and lime were always carrying it. Strong cold black tea in place of the spirit adds a little tannin and stops it tasting like flavoured soda.
Quick answers
What is in a Moscow mule?
Three things: vodka, fresh lime juice and ginger beer, served over ice in a copper mug. That is the entire classic. This version adds two slices of bruised fresh ginger for more heat and a little more lime than most recipes use, because the wings it is meant to sit beside are rich and need cutting through.
Why is a Moscow mule served in a copper mug?
Partly marketing history and partly physics. The copper mug came from a 1940s promotional push to sell both vodka and a stock of unsold copper mugs, and it stuck. The physics is real though: copper conducts temperature much faster than glass, so the mug chills to the temperature of the drink almost immediately and stays frosted. Use a lined mug rather than raw copper, since acidic drinks and bare copper are not ideal.
What is the difference between ginger beer and ginger ale?
Ginger beer is brewed or fermented and tastes strongly, sometimes aggressively, of ginger. Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink with ginger flavouring and is much sweeter and milder. For a mule you want ginger beer. Most modern ginger beer sold in supermarkets contains no alcohol, but check the label if that matters to you, since a few traditional brewed ones retain a trace.
Can you make a mule without vodka?
Yes, and it is one of the few cocktails where almost nothing is lost. The full alcohol-free version is in the ingredients above. Swapping the spirit for a different one also gives you the whole mule family: gin makes a London mule, dark rum makes something very close to a Dark and Stormy, and Mexican spirits make a Mexican mule.
The Last Sip
The Illyrian Storm Mule is three ingredients, thirty seconds of work and a frosted mug, and it is the drink I reach for when whatever I am reading has stopped being gentle. Cold, sharp, and hot at the back of the throat.
Pour one beside a tray of Illyrian Wings for the full war council spread. Full pairing lives on the Saturday Night Sip, Snack & Smut page.
Cold in your hand, burning on the way down. Fitting, for a book about a war.
