Cocktails
No other cocktail embodies the American South as much as this mixture of bourbon, mint and ice.
It is no longer known who mixed the first mint julep and exactly when that was. In any case, it was already widespread in the states of the American South in the 18th century and the bourbon whiskey needed for it had been around since at least 1621.
U.S. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky introduced mint julep to Washington, D.C. in 1811. When Clay was in town he always drank at the “Round Robin Bar” in the “Willard Hotel”, where resided.
Since 1938 mint julep has been the official drink of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. Each year almost 120,000 juleps are served at the Churchill Downs racetrack over the two-day period of the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby.
At the 2006 Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs served custom-made mint juleps at a cost of $1,000 each. They were served in gold-plated cups with silver straws and were made from Woodford Reserve bourbon, mint imported from Ireland, ice from the Bavarian Alps and sugar from Australia. Proceeds were used to support charitable causes dedicated to retired race horses. In May 2008, the racetrack unveiled the world's largest mint julep glass: 6 feet (1.8 m) tall with a capacity of 206 US gallons (780 l; 172 imp gal).
Mint julep is also immortalised in literature: It is mentioned in both Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s critique of society, the novel “The Great Gatsby (1925) and in Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel of the Southern states, “Gone with the Wind” (1936).
Mint julep’s name comes from peppermint (mint) and the term for a sweet drink (julep) used as the means for delivering medicines from the Persian word golâb, meaning rose water.
Ingredients
3 sprigs of peppermint
1 tsp brown cane sugar
8 cl bourbon whiskey (e.g. Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam or Woodford Reserve)
a splash of mineral water
plenty of ice cubes
Instructions
Separate the peppermint leaves from the sprigs. Mix in a glass with sugar, add whiskey and water and let stand for a while, allowing the drink to soak up the flavour of the mint leaves. Fill whiskey glasses ¾ full with ice cubes, put in sprigs of mint, fill up with mint julep.
