2 Famous Cocktails Invented In Los Angeles

You don’t need us to tell you that Los Angeles is a city for dreamers, entrepreneurs, adventurers and entertainers. Los Angeles has been home to fascinating inventions, exciting films and rich history that have all come to define our lives all over the world, and the food and drink industry is no different!

Although Los Angeles may not have a cocktail culture quite as prominent as, say, New York City, San Francisco or New Orleans, a few significant cocktails have made their way from Los Angeles bars onto the world stage. Here are two of Los Angeles’s most famous cocktails that are loved all over the world!

2 famous cocktails invented in Los Angeles

The Moscow Mule

Who would have thought that the iconic Moscow Mule was invented six thousand miles from the city for which it’s named?

As we’ve already explored in the history behind the Bloody Mary, vodka was not a popular drink outside of Russia until the early 20th century when those fleeing the Russian Revolution emigrated to Europe and the United States. In fact, vodka was vastly outshined by beer, whiskey and wine on American bar menus, and the vodka industry was struggling to gain a foothold in the United States. 

It was only in 1941 that the pieces of the Moscow Mule began to drift together. First, a young woman named Sophie Berezinski moved to Los Angeles from Russia with over 2,000 solid copper mugs. Her father owned the Moscow Copper Co. in Russia, and Sophie had designed the iconic copper mug that was printed and stamped at the factory. The mugs weren’t popular with buyers in Russia, however, and so Sophie packed up her mugs and headed to Hollywood to try and sell her wares. 

At the same time, entrepreneur John Martin was looking to expand his business enterprises into the land of liquor. He had bought the Smirnoff vodka company but was struggling to market the liquor to Americans. He was good friends with Jack Morgan, who was owner of the Cock ‘n’ Bull pub on the Sunset Strip and was also looking to promote his own brand of ginger beer. Martin and Morgan were at the Cock ‘n’ Bull pub discussing their struggling business ventures when Sophie Berezinski herself walked through the door, brandishing her copper mugs and launching into her sales pitch. 

According to Sophie and the Moscow Copper Co., the three of them worked together to develop a drink that incorporated Martin’s vodka, Morgan’s ginger beer and Berezinski’s copper mugs. Thus, the Moscow Mule was born!

Today, the Moscow mule is one of the most popular cocktails ordered in the United States and has been the inspiration for many other ginger-beer-based cocktails, also called bucks. 

Here’s the official recipe for a classic Moscow Mule, courtesy of the one and only Moscow Copper Co.!

Original Moscow Mule recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. vodka
• 6 oz. ginger beer
• ¼ oz. fresh lime juice
• Lime, to garnish

Directions:

• Place ice into an official Moscow Copper Co. mug.
• Pour vodka over ice.
• Squeeze lime juice over vodka and top with ginger beer.
• Garnish with lime and enjoy!

The Zombie

This drink is named for the state in which the drink leaves the drinker in! 

One of the most famous bartenders in Los Angeles in the 1930s was Donn Beach, nicknamed Don the Beachcomber. Beach was a fascinating character, having travelled the world, served in World War II and operated a slew of businesses, but he is most famous for establishing the tiki culture we know today. Beach opened his bar, Don the Beachcomber restaurant, right after Prohibition ended in 1933, and tropical cocktails were a staple at the establishment. 

As legend goes, a hungover customer approached the bar and begged Donn Beach to make him a drink to get him through a meeting. This on-the-spot cocktail creation featured a variety of rums, bitters, syrups and juices poured over ice, a specific recipe that Beach kept to himself. The customer returned and said that while he managed to get through his meeting, he felt “like a zombie” afterward. 

The drink still lives up to its name, even nine decades later! Don the Beachcomber restaurants limited customers to two Zombies each because of the drink’s potency, and countless restaurants have attempted to recreate the iconic drink. Donn Beach kept his original recipe to himself and wrote it out in code so that even his own employees didn’t know what exactly went in the concoction!

Tiki culture historian Beachbum Berry (have you ever read a sentence that you know can’t be topped? That was one of those) finally cracked Donn Beach’s famous Zombie recipe in 2005 using some impressive sleuthing and code-breaking. Who could have thought that this fascinating drink has an even more fascinating history? 

Here’s Donn Beach’s original 1934 recipe for a Zombie!

Ingredients:

• ¾ oz. fresh lime juice
• ½ oz. falernum
• 1 ½ oz. gold Puerto Rican rum
• 1 ½ oz. gold or dark Jamaican rum
• 1 oz. 151-proof Lemon Hart Demerara rum 
• 1 tsp. grenadine
• 6 drops Pernod 
• dash of Angostura bitters
• 1/2 ounce Don’s mix (2 parts grapefruit juice to 1 part cinnamon-infused sugar syrup)
• 6 oz. crushed ice

Directions:

• Blend all ingredients in a blender at high speed for no more than 5 seconds. 
• Pour into tall glass. 
• Add ice cubes to fill.
• Garnish with mint sprig. 

Although both the original Cock ‘n’ Bull pub and Don the Beachcomber restaurant are closed today, you can still enjoy these famous Los Angeles cocktails at bars all over the city! If you live in our Southern California apartments, then you should definitely give these cocktails a try next time you’re out!

Enjoy!

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Featured photo courtesy Unsplash/Wine Dharma