Mexican Mule
A Mexican Mule is 50ml of blanco tequila and 15ml of fresh lime juice in a copper mug or highball packed with ice, finished with 120ml of chilled ginger beer, one gentle stir and a lime wedge. About 2.0 UK units, all from the tequila. Swap the vodka in a Moscow Mule for tequila and this is what you get. No creator or date has been found for the change; the Mule has been rebuilt on most spirits since the Moscow Mule, which the Oxford Companion says purportedly originated at the Cock ’n Bull in Los Angeles in 1941. Tequila makes a better swap than most, because blanco is not neutral. It tastes of green, cooked agave with a peppery finish, and that pepper sits where ginger’s burn sits, so the two merge rather than compete. Lime keeps the pair bright. With 120ml in the glass, a fierce ginger beer matters more than anything else.
Glassware: Copper Mug
Garnish: Lime wedge and Mint sprig (optional)
Ingredients
50ml
A 100% agave blanco at about 40% ABV. Its pepper is what meets the ginger; a reposado’s oak rounds it off and the drink loses its point.
15ml
Squeezed the same day. A little more than the Moscow Mule’s 10ml, because tequila’s cooked-agave sweetness wants the extra edge.
120ml
A brewed ginger beer with real heat, straight from the fridge. Most are under 0.5% ABV. It fills two thirds of the mug, so its quality shows.
Instructions
Fill a copper mug or a highball to the top with cubed ice.
Add the tequila and lime juice, and drop the squeezed lime half into the mug.
Top with 120ml of chilled ginger beer.
Stir once, gently, and garnish with a lime wedge, and a mint sprig if you like.
Our version
Our own tequila Mule: 50ml blanco, 15ml lime and 120ml ginger beer, with a little more lime than our IBA Moscow Mule because tequila is sweeter-edged than vodka. We have found no creator or earlier published version.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Sip the ginger beer neat before you build. If it tastes mostly of sugar, the tequila has nothing to meet and the drink goes flat and sweet. Look for a brewed one with a hot, dry finish. Pack the mug with ice right up to the rim. A full mug stays cold for the length of the drink; four or five cubes melt within minutes and thin it out. After squeezing the lime, put the spent half in the mug. Its peel keeps releasing oil into the drink while you finish it.
Behind the Mexican Mule
Flavour Profile
One of the Mule’s Many Swaps
The Mule began as a sales pitch. The Oxford Companion says it purportedly originated in 1941 at the Cock ’n Bull pub in Los Angeles, when Heublein’s president John Martin, promoting Smirnoff vodka, met the owner Jack Morgan, who was hoping to improve sales of his own ginger beer; a competing history has them devising it in New York. A copper mug made the drink recognisable.
The formula proved easy to copy. Bourbon, gin, Irish whiskey and tequila have all taken the vodka’s place. No creator or date has been found for the tequila version.
Two Kinds of Heat
Ginger’s warmth comes from gingerol, a slow burn felt in the throat. Blanco tequila brings a green, peppery bite from the agave that lands in much the same place.
Put together, they read as a single, longer warmth, and the lime cuts across it. In a Moscow Mule the vodka adds strength and not much else; here the spirit adds a flavour the ginger cannot supply.
Why Blanco
Reposado has rested in oak for two months to a year, the Oxford Companion says. That adds vanilla and caramel and rounds off the pepper, which is the very thing that meets the ginger.
A reposado Mule is pleasant and soft. A blanco Mule is sharper and more distinct, and closer to the reason for swapping out the vodka in the first place.
Three Tall Drinks on Ginger Beer
Our Mexican Mule beside our Moscow Mule and El Diablo
Spirit
- Mexican Mule
- 50ml blanco tequila
- Moscow Mule
- 45ml vodka
- El Diablo
- 45ml blanco tequila
Liqueur
- Mexican Mule
- None
- Moscow Mule
- None
- El Diablo
- 15ml crème de cassis
Fresh lime juice
- Mexican Mule
- 15ml
- Moscow Mule
- 10ml
- El Diablo
- 15ml
Ginger beer
- Mexican Mule
- 120ml
- Moscow Mule
- 120ml
- El Diablo
- 90ml
Vessel
- Mexican Mule
- Copper mug or highball
- Moscow Mule
- Copper mug or highball
- El Diablo
- Highball
UK units
- Mexican Mule
- About 2.0
- Moscow Mule
- About 1.8
- El Diablo
- About 2.0
| Element | Mexican Mule | Moscow Mule | El Diablo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit | 50ml blanco tequila | 45ml vodka | 45ml blanco tequila |
| Liqueur | None | None | 15ml crème de cassis |
| Fresh lime juice | 15ml | 10ml | 15ml |
| Ginger beer | 120ml | 120ml | 90ml |
| Vessel | Copper mug or highball | Copper mug or highball | Highball |
| UK units | About 2.0 | About 1.8 | About 2.0 |
The copper mug is a convention, not a requirement. Copper chills fast and frosts on the outside, which is why it feels colder in the hand. Unlined copper and acidic drinks do not mix well, so choose a mug lined with steel, or use a tall glass.
How to Serve It
Pack the mug with ice, pour in the tequila and lime, drop in the squeezed half, then fill with ginger beer and give it one slow turn of the spoon. Finish with a lime wedge, and add mint for its scent if there is some to hand.
Three ingredients and no shaker, so it is quick to make several at once on a warm afternoon.
For vodka in the same mug, make a Moscow Mule; for tequila with blackcurrant and ginger, an El Diablo.
Make it at home
The Spirit
TequilaTequila is a Mexican spirit distilled from the blue agave plant, made, the Oxford Companion says, only in Jalisco and municipalities of four other states; our recipes use 40% ABV. A label reading 100% agave means every sugar came from the plant, where plain tequila needs only 51%. Most of our 26 tequila recipes ask for 100% agave blanco.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Mexican Mule?
How is it different from a Moscow Mule?
Blanco or reposado tequila?
Does it need a copper mug?
Which ginger beer should I use?
Who invented the Mexican Mule?
How strong is a Mexican Mule?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Paul Clarke), “The Moscow Mule” (secondary source: purportedly originated in 1941 at the Cock ’n Bull, Los Angeles, between Heublein’s John Martin (Smirnoff) and Jack Morgan, with a competing New York account; Wes Price claimed to have made it; revival from about 2010).
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Kara Newman), “reposado” (secondary source: tequila aged in oak vats or barrels from two months to one year; blanco under two months; añejo over one year).
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Moscow Mule
A Moscow Mule is 45ml of vodka and 10ml of fresh lime juice over ice in a copper mug, topped with 120ml of cold ginger beer and stirred once, with a lime wedge. Those are the IBA’s measures. About 1.8 UK units, all from the vodka. It is usually dated to 1941 and credited to John G. Martin of Heublein, which had bought Smirnoff and was left with a surplus of vodka, and Jack Morgan of the Cock ’n’ Bull in Los Angeles, who was pushing his own ginger beer, VinePair reports. The Oxford Companion gives other accounts: that Morgan and Martin devised it in New York, or that the Cock ’n’ Bull’s head bartender, Wes Price, did. The ginger beer decides the drink. At 120ml it is two thirds of the glass, so a soft, sugary one gives a soft, sugary Mule. Use the fieriest you can find, and keep the lime short: good ginger beer brings its own bite.
El Diablo
El Diablo is 45ml of blanco tequila, 15ml of crème de cassis and 15ml of fresh lime juice, stirred over ice in a highball and topped with 90ml of chilled ginger beer, with the spent lime shell dropped in. About 2.0 UK units. Its earliest known printing is in Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink of 1946, as the Mexican El Diablo, which the book marks as a Trader Vic original. That version was topped with ginger ale. Ginger beer is the usual choice now, and ours: its heat stands up to the cassis, where ginger ale lets the drink turn sweet. Cassis is French blackcurrant liqueur. It turns the glass deep red, sweetens it and adds dark fruit, so the tequila’s pepper, the ginger and the lime all have something to push against.
Batanga
A Batanga is 50ml of blanco tequila and 120ml of cola over ice in a highball with half the rim salted, with half a lime squeezed in and its shell dropped after it, stirred once. About 2.0 UK units. At La Capilla, the bar it comes from, the stir is done with the knife that cut the limes. Punch reports that Don Javier Delgado Corona kept post behind the bar at La Capilla in the town of Tequila for almost 70 years, and he is credited with it. Garden & Gun has him opening La Capilla in 1961, and the Oxford Companion calls the Batanga a 1950s drink; Punch puts it in the late 1950s or early 1960s and says no one remembers exactly. He died in 2020, at 95, Punch says. It is a Cuba Libre with tequila in place of rum and salt on the rim. The salt does real work: it dulls the bitterness of the cola and lets the pepper of the agave through, so the glass drinks drier than tequila and cola sound.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026