Riding the Moscow Mule

While most respectable citizens go about their drab meaningless lives, selling their labor for below their believed market value, wishing they had taken their money out of the market months earlier, some of us are at home doing god's work. The pay is lousy, but the rewards, if even only temporary, are hard to beat.

Another Monday, another day off, another chance to catch up on my cocktail studies. I reached for good ole (thrice removed?) Uncle Blochman's book and got to work. A quick survey of the kitchen turned up a large bottle of vodka and not much else. A run to the store procured the necessary ingredients for a Moscow mule. Everyone loves a little Soviet kitsch now and again, so let's turn it over to the expert:

Moscow Mule:
2 Ounces Vodka
Juice of 1/2 lime
Ginger Beer

"Put the vodka, the lime juice, and the lime peel in a sturdy mug (a 10-inch highball glass will do in a pinch) with a few ice cubes. Fill with ginger beer-not ginger ale-the murky British-type ginger beer if you can get it. Stir, garnish with a cucumber peel.

When Ansel E. Talbert, OPC Vice president and Aviation and Military Editor of the New York Herald Tribune, flew to Moscow with General Twining for the USSR air show in the summer of 1956, we asked him to investigate the rumor that the Moscow Mule had invaded Moscow. He returned to say the report was a gross exaggeration: he did not see a single mule at the garden party given by Comrades Kruschev and Bulganin for General Twining and the other visiting air-force brass. He did note, however, that some of the comrades were diluting their vodkas with gaudy effervescent liquids which seemed to be some sort of People's Soda Pop."

As I wrote the above with hazy vision and rumbling stomach I almost got nostalgic for the cold war's bipolar security with its guarantee of mutually assured destruction, as opposed to the uncertainties of the (seemingly fading) "war on terror." At least we can drink our Moscow Mules and remember the seriously ridiculous good ole day when our enemies were simply godless communists. Interestingly, our current bogeymen enemies' religiosity makes any rational citizen seriously question religion and its frequent flagrant rejection of rationality and at times decency. Current studies have suggested that religion is on the decline and has maybe run its course in Modern America. Times are always interesting. Seeing as some of you are pulling away from me here, maybe it's time to have another drink and not think too much about anything at all. We are at war with Eastasia. We've always been at war with Eastasia...