Cocktail · Spirit-forward
Mint Julep
Bourbon, mint, sugar, and a mountain of crushed ice. The South's silver-cup ritual.
How to order it: Slap the mint, don't muddle it to death. Derby Day optional; the porch is not.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2½ oz bourbon
- ¼ oz rich syrup
- 8 mint leaves, lightly pressed
- Mountain of crushed ice
- Julep cup; generous mint bouquet
The story
The word descends from julab, a Persian and Arabic term for a rosewater drink, and by the eighteenth century the American julep was a Virginia morning tonic — spirits and sugar taken as a bracer, to the horror of visiting Europeans. Mint moved in, bourbon displaced brandy and rum, and the silver cup became the Southern gentry's calling card. Kentucky senator Henry Clay is credited with introducing it to Washington at the Willard Hotel. Its modern empire, though, is one race: the official drink of the Kentucky Derby since 1938, served by the hundred-thousand each May. The Julep endures as the South's great cold ritual — frost on silver, bourbon underneath.
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