The Moscow Mule, Canned

The Moscow Mule has had a long run as the default cocktail at every bar trying to seem interesting without working too hard. Vodka, ginger beer, lime, the copper mug that’s become its own cliché—you see it and you know exactly what you’re getting and roughly what the night is going to feel like. The drink was invented in the United States in the early 1940s and has been inescapable ever since, with Berlin adding its own local touch somewhere along the way: a thick cucumber slice that shouldn’t work with citrus and ginger and somehow does.

The problem is the bartender variable. The recipe isn’t complicated, but it’s remarkably easy to get wrong—too sweet, not enough ginger, vodka that announces itself two sips in—and there’s no way to know which direction the evening is heading until you’ve already paid for the round.

Salt Point removed the variable. Their Moscow Mule comes in a can, built on American vodka, fresh ginger, and natural flavors, which means the ratio is fixed and you know exactly what you’re opening before you open it. Canned cocktails still carry some baggage—the hard seltzer years weren’t kind to the format—but Salt Point is making a case that a can is just a delivery mechanism. If the drink inside is right, the container is irrelevant.