I Never Order Moscow Mules—Except for This One

There are many cocktails that I’ll automatically order if I see them on a menu—a Saturn, an El Presidente, a sherry cobbler—but the Moscow Mule is not one of them. The drink, a simple highball of vodka, ginger beer and lime, is often too one-note for me. But perhaps that’s why it was ready for the kind of reinterpretation that Portland, Oregon’s Palomar brings to classic cocktails. 

For their take on the drink, bar manager and Best New Bartender alum Jordan Valls and his team start with vodka and lime, but use ginger syrup instead of ginger beer, and add bubbles via carbonated roasted-coconut juice. Served over crushed ice and capped off with a sprinkle of toasted coconut flakes and lime zest, it’s a tropical take on the classic. With these additions, Palomar’s Moscow Mule has a much greater depth of flavor than the original.

This recipe is emblematic of Palomar’s entire drink-making philosophy, in which the bar starts with classic cocktails, then finds ways to rework them by tapping new ingredients and technologies. “Everybody makes them, but nobody makes them like we make them,” Valls says of the roster of drinks, which includes the Mule as well as classics like a Turf Club and Rusty Nail. “With cocktails like this, it’s not that the original didn’t serve a purpose or isn’t great by itself, but we can improve it and bring it up to speed.”

In Palomar’s Moscow Mule, it’s the coconut juice, which Valls force-carbonates, that gives the drink its glow-up. To make the cocktail at home, you can use canned Foco Roasted Coconut Juice, which is available at most Asian grocery stores, and force-carbonate it using an iSi. Or, for an even easier alternative, you can use a store-bought coconut soda. “It gives it that savory aspect and kicks it in that tropical direction,” Valls says. “Because of those different aspects, it turns [the Moscow Mule] into something completely different than most folks have tried.” It’s also turned into something that will make me think twice about dismissing this classic cocktail the next time I see it on a menu.