Horse's Neck

INTRODUCTION

To make 1 tall drink

1 lemon

2 to 3 ice cubes

8 to 10 ounces cold ginger ale

A straw

A Tom Collins glass

PROCEDURE

With a small, sharp knife, peel a lemon in one continuous spiral so that it resembles a corkscrew. Place the peel in a Tom Collins glass, leaving just enough peel hanging over the edge of the glass so that it stays up right. Place 2 to 3 ice cubes in the glass, fill with ginger ale, and serve with a straw.

The original English or Irish Horse's Neck was a whiskey drink, and one variation still popular in the British Isles is made as above with the addition of 3 ounces of brandy and the substitution of 5 to 7 ounces of Irish ginger al for the ginger ale. During Prohibition, the American version of the Horse's Neck lost its alcoholic content.

RESULTS

I know I know, no alcohol in this one, but this one is a throw back to prohibition. It's historical! And you know what they say, you don't need alcohol to have a good time, and so I'd say you don't need alcohol to get full marks. Plus this is inclusive for all those pregnant ladies out there and those who are not participating for various reasons. So this post is for them! To be fair, I actually really love ginger ale (been on a ginger ale binge this past week) so that's why this one gets 5/5, almost a 4/5 because the cutting the corkscrew lemon peel is HARD. A true wrist workout. Mine broke but it turned out to be the perfect size anyways. I think this would be good with bourbon as well, maybe not brandy but I'll be sure to try them both in the future :)

Not a lot of pics for this drink but below are the ingredients, the process (my lemon peel fell so many times), and the final result (including one naked lemon). Cheers!

DISCUSSION

Haven't we all had that life lesson where it took losing something to realize how much it really meant. Mhmm thankfully the prohibition was just a phase.

Super cool thing: "A Horse's Neck is an American cocktail recognized by the IBA". I didn't know what the IBA was but it is or what that means so here's the explanation, "The IBA official cocktails are the cocktails selected by the International Bartenders Association (IBA) for use in the annual World Cocktail Competition (WCC) in bartending." How exciting :)

There's a whole list of cocktails recognized by the IBA, uh oh sounds like a new list for me to drink my way through and blog about!!