Muleta

Ayush Nair

Competing for Future Icon 2026

Most people know the Margarita. But before it became tequila’s most famous cocktail, the Café Royal Cocktail Book recorded some of its earliest classics, including the Bullfighter. While researching the recipe, I found a forgotten ingredient called Hercules Aperitif. No bottle or complete recipe survives, only fragments describing a wine-based aperitif believed to contain yerba mate. That discovery inspired Muleta. Rather than replace Hercules with a modern aperitif, I recreated its role. Sweet vermouth is infused with yerba mate, toasted oak barley tea and liquorice root, creating an earthy, tea-like aperitif with gentle bitterness. Charred rosemary adds warm herbal aromas before the first sip. I chose Patrón Reposado to complement it. Its cooked agave anchors the drink, while orange zest, vanilla and oak echo the toasted barley and herbal depth of the revived Hercules. Dry Curaçao lifts the botanicals and connects the tequila to the aperitif. Muleta takes its name from the red cape that guides the final movement of a bullfight. It is a tribute to one of tequila’s earliest classics, brought forward through Patrón Reposado, and a reminder that cocktail culture can move ahead by rediscovering what was almost lost!