How to Ranch-Wash Anything

Testing the theory that everything’s better with ranch

The only real trick to making ranch dressing–washed liquor is managing the blob. Commercial ranch dressing, with its industrial-strength emulsifiers and stabilizers, can “do a funny thing” when it’s mixed into alcohol, says Amy Connor, beverage director at Mean Mule Distilling Co. in Kansas City, Missouri. “It can form this gelatinous blob that’s big and unwieldy.” For now, she strains the blob out and throws it away, though a local chef has been asking about deep-frying it.

Other than that, the process couldn’t be more straightforward.

Squirting ranch into liquor is standard practice for Connor and the other bartenders at Mean Mule, a distillery that makes tequila-like spirits from Mexican agave.

The Mean Mule bar isn’t your typical distillery tasting room. Rather than just pouring flights, Connor and her coworkers are testing their agave spirits’ limits with wildly creative cocktails. The current menu includes a Kansas City barbecue–inspired old-fashioned and a drink that involves both mostarda and Malört. My favorite cocktail of 2025, which Connor created for a baijiu contest but served at Mean Mule as a one-night-only special, was a French onion soup riff in a Nick & Nora glass, flavored with caramelized onions, yeast, and beef stock and topped with a Gruyère crisp.

The drinks at Mean Mule might read like outrageous dares or Chopped-style ingredient challenges, but the team pulls them off. That approach has made the distillery one of the most interesting bars in Kansas City.

Amy Connor at work (📸: Pilsen Photo Co-op)

Connor’s ranch-washed agave spirit actually was a stunt—at first. “I made it because I wanted to con my coworkers into drinking ranch,” she says. Playing with a technique called fat-washing, most famously used to make bacon-flavored whiskey, she gave a bottle of Mean Mule’s oak-aged Gold a Hidden Valley makeover. She got a laugh out of it. Then, she had to figure out what to do with it.

She started with a “dilly cucumber salad” drink called the Ranch Wrangler. “People went crazy for it,” she says. Before long, she was pouring ranch shots for friends. “It was originally an ‘If you know, you know’ thing, but it became so popular in the first six months, we realized, ‘This has to go on the menu.’” The ranch-washed Gold is now the best-selling shot at Mean Mule. Connor serves it with a side of cactus brine, pickleback style, and calls the combo the Tommy Pickles.

“There are people who have Tommy Pickles tattoos now,” she says. “We have a group of regulars who use a chart to keep track of how many they’ve had. We had a couple come in here on their wedding night and take Tommy Pickles photos, because they drank them on their first date and when they got engaged. It’s part of people’s love stories, so we can never take it off the menu.”

It’s no surprise that the MSG-accented pour is a hit in Kansas City. Midwesterners love ranch dressing so much that it’s become a heartland cliche, even though it was first made in Alaska and its namesake ranch was in California. (Its inventor, Steve Henson, grew up in the flyspeck town of Thayer, Nebraska, but per his own story, he left home many years before he started playing around with mayo and buttermilk.)

“I think ranch is Midwestern because we embrace it,” Connor says. “We aren’t afraid to try it with everything.”

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The Ranch Wrangler, with ranch-washed Mean Mule Gold and cucumber and citrus juices (📸: Pilsen Photo Co-op)

RANCH-WASHED ANYTHING
Adapted from Amy Connor, Mean Mule Distilling Co., Kansas City, MO

Makes 1 bottle
Total time: 5 minutes, plus a 24-hour infusion and at least 2 hours in the freezer

You can sip this herby spirit straight, Tommy Pickles–style, or put it to work in cocktails. It’s an obvious fit for a Bloody Mary. Connor also suggests ranch-washing gin for a dirty gin and tonic, with a splash of pickle juice or olive brine, or a martini, where it would pair well with tomato water. But if you’re just doing this for the bit, you really can’t beat infusing tequila or sotol to make a ranch-flavored ranch water.

Ingredients
1 750 ml bottle tequila, vodka, gin, or any other spirit
½ cup (120 g) ranch dressing, such as Hidden Valley
2 tbsp. (6 g) dried dill (also called dill weed)

Preparation
Add liquor, ranch dressing, and dried dill to a nonreactive quart container. Stir or shake gently to combine. Do not whisk or blend. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

If the ranch forms a gelatinous blob, pour it through a fine-mesh strainer. Discard the blob.

Cover the jar and transfer it to the freezer for at least 2 hours, until any remaining fat has solidified.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean container, discarding any remaining solids, then pour it through a coffee filter, to remove the dill and any lingering bits of ranch.

For the best flavor, store it in the refrigerator, where it will last “forever,” Connor says. As long as it’s properly strained (don’t skip the coffee filter), you can safely keep it at room temperature, but the flavor will fade more quickly.