Whisky & Ginger Beer
Ginger beer makes a heavier, sweeter, altogether louder drink than ginger ale does, and with Scotch it produces something that has been popular under various names for well over a century. Where ginger ale frames the whisky, ginger beer argues with it — brewed rather than flavoured, thick with fresh ginger heat, and carrying enough sugar to need the smoke and cereal weight of a blended Scotch to hold it steady. The result sits close to a mule without the lime, which is the main thing separating it from its more famous cousin. Orange rather than lime is the garnish here, and it softens the drink noticeably: the peel oil rounds off the ginger burn rather than sharpening it. This is the version to make when a whisky and ginger has felt too polite. It is not a subtle drink and it does not benefit from being treated as one.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Orange Slice
Ingredients
150ml
The published serve specifies their Refreshingly Light version, which keeps the sugar down without losing the heat. Either works — what matters is that the ginger is brewed rather than flavoured, because a mild ginger beer leaves nothing for the Scotch to lean on.
50ml
A blend. The grain whisky softens the ginger heat and the malt gives it a cereal weight that stops the drink reading as sweet. Peated malts fight the ginger and the drink turns muddy.
Fill the glass
Cubed and to the top. Ginger beer is heavier than ginger ale and warms into something syrupy faster, so keeping the glass properly cold matters more here.
Instructions
Fill a highball glass to the top with cubed ice.
Pour in the ginger beer.
Add the Scotch over the top and let it settle through.
Stir once, gently, from the bottom.
Garnish with a slice of orange.
Source: the producer's own published serve (Fever-Tree). Last checked 22 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Use the fiercest ginger beer you can find. The difference between a brewed one and a flavoured one is not marginal in a drink this simple — a timid ginger beer with a good Scotch tastes like sweet fizzy water with whisky in it, and no adjustment to the ratio will rescue it. Add a squeeze of lime if it tastes flabby. That is the Mamie Taylor, the drink this descends from, and the acid is what its modern descendants usually lack. A quarter of a lime is enough. Blended Scotch, not single malt. The blend has grain whisky in it, which gives a softness the ginger needs to push against. Peat and ginger heat in the same glass is a fight nobody wins.
Behind the Whisky & Ginger Beer
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Scotch and ginger has a proper name and a fairly well-documented origin: the Mamie Taylor. It was mixed in 1899 at a lakeside outing near Rochester, New York, reportedly for the light opera singer Mayme Taylor, who had asked for something long and cold. Scotch, ginger, and lime.
It became a genuine craze. For a few years around the turn of the century it was one of the most-ordered drinks in America, popular enough that the phrase turned up as slang and the singer herself is said to have been unimpressed at the association.
It then vanished almost completely, which is the usual fate of fad drinks. What survived is the unnamed version — Scotch and ginger, no lime — that most bars still pour.
Ginger Beer, Not Ginger Ale
Ginger ale is a flavoured carbonated soft drink. Ginger beer is brewed, historically fermented, and carries far more actual ginger. The gap between them is much wider than the shared word suggests.
In practice that means more heat, more sugar, more body and a cloudier texture. A whisky that holds its own against ginger ale can disappear underneath ginger beer, which is why the blend matters more here than it does in the lighter version.
What the Lime Was Doing
The original had lime in it and the modern version mostly does not, which is worth knowing when the drink tastes heavy. Ginger beer brings sweetness and heat but no acidity at all, and heat without acid reads as thick.
A squeeze of lime pulls the whole thing back into focus. It is not needed every time — a very dry ginger beer manages without — but it is the first thing to reach for when the drink feels like hard work.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from a Moscow Mule?
Can I use bourbon instead?
Why orange rather than lime?
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Dan Freeman