Whiskey Rickey

Whiskey, lime, and soda water without sugar — the Rickey's unsweetened format applied to whiskey, from Shoomaker's Bar, Washington D.C., around 1883.

The Whiskey Rickey applies the Rickey's specifically unsweetened structure — spirit, fresh lime juice, and soda water without added sugar — to whiskey, producing a dry, refreshing long drink whose deliberate lack of sweetness contrasts with most casual whiskey cocktail formats. The Rickey was created at Shoomaker's Bar in Washington, D.C. around 1883, with the most commonly cited account attributing it to or naming it for Colonel Joseph Kyle Rickey — a Missouri-born Democratic grain merchant and lobbyist who frequented the bar and for whom the drink was prepared. Some accounts suggest that Rickey himself ordered the bourbon version before the gin Rickey became more popular; the evidence on his preferred spirit is not definitive. What is consistent across accounts is the D.C. setting, the 1880s era, and the deliberate exclusion of sweetener that distinguishes the Rickey from every other sour-format drink. The whiskey Rickey's unsweetened tartness — lime's citric acid against whiskey's grain and barrel character without sugar mediation — produces a drink of singular dryness that is particularly well-suited to the spice-forward profile of American straight rye or the grain complexity of bourbon.