Mezcal Mule

The Mezcal Mule is the Moscow Mule with mezcal instead of vodka, and it arrived in the 2010s as mezcal reached bars outside Mexico. Ginger beer and smoke are an obvious pairing, and most versions add cucumber, chilli or both to keep the drink from reading as a novelty. It has no single author — the substitution is the whole idea — and its best versions cut the agave syrup because ginger beer already carries the sugar.

• Cucumber-and-chilli mezcal mules became a summer-menu standard, and the same framework produced mezcal Palomas.

• Mezcal Mule with chilli
• Mezcal Mule with cucumber and chilli
• Mezcal Paloma

“Smoke and ginger both read as “warm” spices, which is why the lime has to be generous.”