Every pickle-loving adult of drinking age knows the benefits of a pickle juice chaser ( ), but not every one of us can stake claim to having invented the pickleback shot. (Though I wish I had.) The now well-known pickleback shot is actually just barely 18 years old itself.
The female customer who walked into the bar saw the bartender Reggie Cunningham enjoying a McClure's brand pickle from the jar and requested he serve her a whiskey shot with some pickle brine on the side. Cunningham hesitantly tried the combo as well and ended up knocking back multiple picklebacks that same night. Some serendipitous circumstances led this woman, a bartender, the owners of the bar, and a pickle company to be able to proudly say they sparked the pickle and whiskey trend.
This is how a random request became an iconic part of How the pickleback shot became a worldwide hit Bob McClure, co-founder of McClure's pickles, lived above the Bushwick Country Club, and had a storage conundrum to solve. John Roberts, owner of the Bushwick Country Club, allowed McClure to store his pickle inventory in the basement of the bar. That's how Cunningham wound up snacking on a fresh pickle in the middle of his shift.
"I don't think we were the first people to ever drink pickle juice with liquor, but as far as the phenomenon itself, I think Bushwick Country Club was ground zero that night," Cunningham told . Interestingly, no matter how many times the story is told by McClure, Roberts, or Cunningham, the female cu.