Title: [Bubba-L] Literary Mint Julep Recipe Part 2
Categories: Beverages
Yield: 1 Servings

SEE DIRECTIONS

And the younger generation has no respect for tradition at all. The julep-drinking numbers go like this:

65 or older 39% 45-64 32% 25-44 24% 18-24 9%

But worst of all is the fact that more folks have apparently drunk a julep than know what's in one. Eighty percent of Southerners and 77 percent of non-Southerners said they didn't know; another 10 percent of Southerners and 13 percent of non- Southerners thought they know, but were wrong. And some of the wrong answers were truly disgusting: 7-Up, creme de menthe, peppermint schnapps, cherries, lemonade, chocolate, orange cream, "juleps," "green stuff," and "a square kind of candy that's chewy." Yuck.

This is a disgrace. I mean, here's a libation that's supposed to be part of Southerners' heritage, and most of us don't even know what's in it.

So, listen up. It's your patriotic duty to know how to make a mint julep, even if you never touch the stuff. Even The Old Mr. Boston Drink Book has a decent recipe: check it out. Or if that's too much trouble, let Mr. Will Percy tell you how it was done in the old days. Here's how his mother did it:

Certainly her juleps had nothing in common with those hybrid concoctions one buys in bars the world over under that name. It would have been sacrilege to add lemon, or a slice of orange or of pineapple, or one of those wretched maraschino cherries. First you needed excellent bourbon whisky; rye or Scotch would not do at all. Then you put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampened it with water. Next, very quickly -- and here was the trick in the

procedure -- you crushed your ice, actually powdered it, preferably in a towel with a wooden mallet, so quickly that it remained dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside of the glass, you crammed the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand. Last you filled the glass, which apparently had no room left for anything else, with bourbon, the older the better, and grated a bit of nutmeg on the top. The glass immediately frosted and you settled back in your chair for half an hour of sedate cumulative bliss. Although you stirred the sugar at the bottom, it never all melted, therefore at the end of the half hour there was left a delicious mess of ice and mint and whisky which a small boy was allowed to consume with calm rapture.

That nutmeg must be a Delta thing -- I never heard of it anywhere else ~- but Percy's version is close enough to classic for me. I mean, if you can't trust a Southern gentleman to know about juleps, who can you trust? Stick to his instructions and you can't go wrong.

Of course, folks will disagree about some of the details. This is the South we're talking about here, after all. Kentuckians and Virginians will argue about whether to muddle the mint, for instance, and purists will tell you it's not a julep if it's not served in a silver cup. But that's the kind of interstate discord and class snobbery that brought down the Confederacy. As far as I'm concerned, things have reached such a pass these days that you can muddle the mint or not, drink from silver or pewter (or a jelly jar if you have to), put nutmeg on it if you must, and crush your ice in a blender if you don't have a wooden mallet or the energy to use it. The important thing is that we not allow the julep to pass from living memory.

Here's to the liberation of our country.

Recipe By : Contributed By John Shelton Reed

From: Jim Weller Date: 06-21-98 (17:58) The Neverending Bbs (286) Fido-Natio

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