Myth Julep

The Best-Laid Plans of Mint and Men

Summer is a time for plans to go up in smoke. I was convinced during the cocktail creation process that I would marry the deliciousness of a grilled peach to the brilliance of a mint julep. I gave up quickly on the grilled part, partially out of innate laziness given the Weber hadn’t yet had its seasonal cleanout, so really, I would get it going just to grill peaches?

Fortunately, summer is also a time to chill, that is, celebrate ice. Sure, things have frozen in nature for eons, but commercial ice didn’t become a thing until the early 1800s, which, far from uncoincidentally, was when people started making the first cocktails. Ice has a fascinating history, really: Go Google up Frederic Tudor, the Ice King. But, as with most things cocktail, the story lands in New Orleans almost at its root.

“Sometimes I like to imagine those early-nineteenth-century Americans ordering their first Mint Julep,” Neal Bodenheimer, owner of the James Beard Award–winning New Orleans bar Cure, has written. “When that drink landed on the bar—when they saw that bounty of clear, cold, beautiful ice—my guess is they went totally @#$%&. We take ice for granted, but it was such a luxury back then—especially in tropical climates like Louisiana, where any ice you tasted was lake-cut in the North and transported via cargo ship down the Mississippi.”

As for what makes a julep a julep besides ice, that has evolved, too. The word’s roots are in the Persian gulab, a rosewater-scented syrup. Over the years and through the imperialism the concoction shifted from something medicinal to a classic cocktail. Indeed, the earliest forms that brought together sugar, liquor, mint and ice featured rum for a bit and Cognac for a bit longer—those in New Orleans loved their French stuff. Phylloxera made Cognac rarer and more expensive, so thrifty Louisianans looked up the Mississippi for bourbon and the rest is pleasantly blurred history.

At our house we joke that because of the sugar and mint the drink goes down too fast. You have no choice but to end up juleped by evening’s end.

Note people approach making the “classic” version in a variety of ways, so consider classic an attitude more than a prescription. Since summer is a time to reward yourself for work I insist you hand-crush your ice yourself. I’ve got an ancient refrigerator that lacks even a rudimentary icemaker, but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as feeling the ice crack thanks to your own muscle-power. You also must plan; if you didn’t get your glasses in the freezer ahead of time, most of the magic of the drink will be lost. If your glass isn’t almost too cold to hold, you have missed the whole point of a julep.

Over the years I have made the drink with simple syrup instead of powdered sugar, but the sugar “melting” right into the alcohol somehow gives you more sweet bang for the buck. Plus, dusting the mint with the sugar is attractive, too. You want to have a good time as this is a built drink, no cocktail shakers necessary. And sure, the two-step I suggest for adding ice and bourbon might seem precious but give the drink its time and dignity and dilution. You’re not just sipping alcohol, but history.

And the mint julep didn’t become the official drink of the Kentucky Derby until the mid-1930s, so given this Myth Julep still includes a splash of brandy, you can feel secure your celebration predates that.

Perhaps I’ll serve some Myth Juleps up alongside a peach and burrata salad, as one wise friend suggested, in order to make my initial plans fruit.