How to Make a Kentucky Buck, the Bourbon Cocktail with a Ginger Kick
9 Video Views·Nov 9, 2022
Created by bartender Erick Castro at Rickhouse in San Francisco, the Kentucky Buck is a bourbon, ginger and strawberry cocktail that's great with a ginger beer, but even better with fresh ginger syrup and sparkling water. If it sounds like a Moscow Mule with bourbon and strawberries it’s because that’s exactly what it is, but the mule was passé by that point in San Francisco, so Castro reached deeper into history for the name. A “Buck” is a style of cocktail that dates back to the 1890s—long before the Mule or the Dark ‘n Stormy—and was composed of just a spirit (usually whiskey) and ginger beer, so named because the ginger and alcohol together would give quite a kick (the Moscow Mule is named similarly, for the kick).Our resident bartender Jason O'Bryan shows you how to make one in the latest episode of Cocktails for Grown-Ups.
If I had somebody, a dyed-in-the-wool whiskey hater,
and they said,
can you make me a drink that will make me like whiskey?
I would make them a Kentucky Buck.
The Kentucky Buck comes to us from 2009
from a bar called Rick House in San Francisco.
It was invented by a bartender named Eric Castro.
And the Kentucky Buck stands out to almost everybody.
Everybody wants a bourbon drink that's refreshing.
Everybody loves ginger, and everybody loves strawberries.
It is like three overlapping Venn diagrams of crowd-pleasers.
It's one of those drinks that just everybody loves.
Now, astute cocktail observers will notice
that this looks a lot like a mule.
So why is it called a buck?
The mule comes to us from 1940 from the Smirnoff Company.
So they invented the Moscow Mule,
but before it was that, it was a buck.
So the Kentucky Buck,
the name is a throwback to an older style of drink.
It is quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious.
So, the way to make it.
We start with fresh lemon juice.
We're doing three quarters of one ounce of fresh lemon juice.
Lime will work, if that's what you have.
Next, fresh strawberries.
Now, if this were raspberries, when you shake it with ice,
they would muddle themselves.
But, strawberries are made of a little stronger stuff.
And then we muddle them.
You don't need to pulverize these things.
You don't need to turn it into mush.
Just enough to get some of the juices out.
Next, the ginger.
If it is within your power,
I really do recommend trying to make a fresh ginger syrup.
Now, in professional bar situations,
we have industrial juicers that can take ginger root
and get the juice out of it.
And then we mix that with sugar,
and it's like a bright, spicy ginger syrup.
There is a molecule in ginger.
It's literally called gingerol.
And that is what makes it spicy.
And it oxidizes immediately.
So, a ginger syrup that I make today
won't be nearly as spicy three days from now as it is today.
It starts going down right away.
And the corollary of this
is that anything you buy in the store
will have almost none of that inherent spice
of the ginger left over.
Now, some ginger beers try to cheat it.
They'll add, like, cayenne pepper,
which is good.
I mean, it works.
But if you have the means,
I really do recommend fresh ginger syrup.
And if you're using fresh ginger syrup,
it is three quarters of one ounce.
We are matching the lemon juice.
Next, it's time for the bourbon.
Any brand of bourbon, honestly, is gonna work here.
Ginger is very forgiving in terms of brands.
It doesn't prefer one style over the other.
I am using Buffalo Trace.
It is one of my go-to cocktail bourbons
because it is delicious,
and we do two ounces of that.
And finally, it's the cinnamon and clove notes
with a couple dashes of Angostura bitters.
Next, we add some ice to our glass and to our tin,
and then we're gonna shake it up.
And our final step,
because we're simulating ginger beer
with fresh ginger syrup and fresh citrus,
we need a little bit of bubbles.
So, a tiny bit of soda water,
just like an ounce or two.
You can add this after if you like,
but then that would mean that it'll be cocktail here
and then soda on top.
And so, then you'll just have to mix it up.
And because there's a bunch of strawberry bits in here,
I'm going to double strain with one of these tea strainers.
Now, it's not important that you do that,
but I'm going to try and keep the solids out.
And there's a bunch of things you could do for a garnish.
You could do candied ginger.
You could do some mint if you had a mind to.
Got these beautiful strawberries,
so I'm gonna use just a half of a strawberry
on the rim of the glass, like so.
Ginger and the strawberry together are just such a sell.
It's unbelievable.
If he named it Eric's Special Elixir,
no one would ever order it.
But Kentucky Buck, yeah, I'll have a Kentucky Buck.