Price is said to have created the drink in an attempt to clear an overstock of ginger beer from the pub's basement.
Others, most notably Eric Felton in a 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal, say the drink was invented back in Hollywood at the Cock 'n' Bull by Wes Price, its head bartender. Legend has it that the two men met at New York City's Chatham Bar and hit on the idea of mixing Martin's vodka with Morgan's ginger beer and adding a squeeze of lime (perhaps inspired by the Cuba Libre) to create the Moscow Mule. Meanwhile, Jack Morgan, a friend of his and owner of Hollywood's famous British pub, the Cock'n'Bull Saloon on Sunset Strip, was trying to launch his own brand of ginger beer but sales were not going well. Martin had recently (in 1939) acquired the rights to Smirnoff vodka for Heublein, a small Connecticut-based liquor and food distributor. Part of the Buck family of cocktails, the Moscow Mule was created in 1941 - 1946 (the date and place of creation are disputed).
