These three summer cocktails have a spicy kick

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When Josh Pape invented the Buck Buck Mule in 2009, the cocktail’s name was a clear sign that he and his partners were experiencing some serious decision fatigue. “We asked ourselves, is it a buck or a mule?” recalls Pape of the days leading up to the grand opening of the Diamond, a legendary – but not shuttered – cocktail bar in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood. “And then we decided to make the drink with both ginger ale and ginger beer and called it the Buck Buck Mule, which we thought was a fun and playful name.”

“Fun and playful” because Mules were traditionally made with ginger beer, whereas the Buck, an older family of drinks, calls for ginger ale. Even by the time that Pape and company took a cheeky poke at the distinction, though, the lines were blurry. The cocktail renaissance – already in full swing at the time – had seen spicy ginger beer supplant ginger ale in Buck recipes, in keeping with an increasingly adventurous palate and a thirst for old school ingredients.

It didn’t take Pape long to 86 the ginger ale. The bar was way too busy to fuss with two mixers in a single cocktail and the ginger beer gave the drink more character. That proved to be the right call, given that the Buck Buck Mule would turn out to be one of the Diamond’s all-time most popular cocktails. “It was on the list for basically the entire time the bar was open,” recalls Pape. “I think we took it off once for a couple of weeks and nobody stopped ordering it, so we figured it was just easier to just put it back on the menu. There was no fighting it any more.”

Around the same time that Pape put the Buck Buck Mule on the map, San Francisco went mad for bartender Erick Castro’s Kentucky Buck, an on-trend cocktail made with bourbon, lemon juice, ginger beer, Angostura bitters and garnished with strawberries. That kicked off a wave of experimentation that eventually led to the bitter and lower-alcohol Italian Buck (Cynar, Amaro Montenegro, lime and ginger beer) created in 2015 by Canadian ex-pat Jamie Boudreau at his celebrated Seattle bar, Canon. Since then, many bartenders see the Buck formula as an invitation to experiment.

“Because of the ginger, a Buck can really ride out all seasons,” says Kaitlyn Stewart of YouTube’s @LikeableCocktails. “So, I really lean into the seasonal flavours. If it’s summer, I love peach and ginger, blueberry and ginger and, weirdly enough, tomato water and ginger is a really great combination.”

It’s actually hard to think of spirits and fruits that don’t work with citrus and ginger beer (or ale, if preferred), which is why it should definitely be everyone’s drink of summer. The Buck is simple, light and approachable.

“The one thing that sometimes gets a little lost in the sauce is that people think it has to be overly complicated to be unique, new and interesting,” Stewart says. “If you’re using that local produce that’s in season, why do you need to add seven other ingredients on top of that to hide all that beauty?”

Here, three variations on the cocktail are broken down to help you switch things up through the summer:

Buck Buck Mule

This recipe is included in Adrienne Stillman’s 2020 cocktail compendium, Spirited, in a section full of novel takes on Bucks and Mules.

1 oz dry gin

1 oz fino sherry

¾ oz cucumber juice

⅓ oz lime juice

⅓ oz simple syrup

4 oz ginger beer

Cucumber ribbon (for garnish)

Line a glass with the cucumber ribbon and add ice. Shake all ingredients except the ginger beer in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Strain into the glass and top with ginger beer.

Tame Impala

Made by Joshua LeBlanc, the Tame Impala was on Bar Mordecai’s opening list and it turned out to be a “lifer,” appearing on every cocktail list since.

2 oz Chai-infused Tromba Blanco tequila*

1 tsp Siete Misterios mezcal

1 oz ginger syrup

1 oz fresh lime juice

½ oz cucumber juice

1½ oz soda

Shake all the ingredients other than the soda water in a cocktail shaker. Top with soda in the tin and strain into a tall Collins glass over a spear of Nice Ice** cocktail ice.

*To make chai-infused tequila, add one chai teabag to one cup of tequila and leave for one week in a cool place before removing the teabag.

**Nice Ice is a Toronto company that specializes in ice for cocktails.

Buck: The Trend

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This tasty Buck was invented at 11th Mile in Fredericton, where it’s made with raspberry shrub. Depending on the season, its creators advise using raspberry kombucha if shrub is unavailable.

1½ oz raspberry shrub (or raspberry kombucha)

2 oz ginger beer

2 oz Buffalo Trace bourbon

1 dash Angostura bitters

1 dash orange bitters.

1 mint sprig (for garnish)

Build the drink in an ice-filled Collins glass. Garnish with a fresh sprig of mint.

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