A plainspoken highball of vodka over cranberry juice, built tall on ice and brightened with a squeezed lime wedge. Tart, easy and unfussy, it pours a deep ruby, with the cranberry bringing a dry, puckering fruit edge while the vodka stays quietly in the background, lengthening the drink rather than flavouring it.
Garnish: Lime Wedge
Built · Highball · On the Rocks
build
Fill a highball glass with ice cubes.
add
Pour the vodka and cranberry juice over the ice.
stir
Stir briefly to combine and chill.
garnish
Squeeze a lime wedge over the drink and drop it in.
The most repeated account credits the Ocean Spray cranberry growers' cooperative, which devised it in 1945 as a promotional drink called the "Red Devil," though restaurateur Pierre Ferro has a parallel claim to a "Red Devil" of his own. In the years that followed it went by other names, the "Rangoon Ruby" among them, and no single person has ever been settled on as its inventor. The Cape Codder name took hold from the early 1960s and has since become the generic label for vodka and cranberry served long over ice.