A tall, spicy whiskey highball, with rye lengthened by ginger beer, brightened by a squirt of lemon and grounded by a generous three dashes of Angostura. It drinks cold and lively, the ginger's heat meeting the rye's pepper while the bitters lend a clove-dark edge, close kin in the glass to a Horse's Neck.
Built · Highball · On the Rocks
build
Fill a highball glass three-quarters with ice.
add
Pour in the rye whiskey, lemon juice, and Angostura bitters.
top
Top with chilled ginger beer.
stir
Stir gently to combine.
The Horsefeather turned up in Lawrence, Kansas during the 1990s, but no inventor appears in the record and its exact beginnings remain murky. It is often described as a regional take on the older Horse's Neck, and it has since become a signature order throughout the Kansas City area. Its name comes from a bit of 1920s slang meaning "nonsense" — apt for a drink whose story nobody can quite nail down. Versions with ginger ale, lime or muddled lemon have also been recorded.