The burgeoning ice trade, started in New England in 1806, was by the 1810s shipping ice down south year round, and that’s all the drink needed to really take off. It travels from medicine cabinet to liquor cabinet by way of an English novel called Tom Jones in 1749, wherein a character describes a bottle of wine, jokingly, as a “medicinal julap.” It is similar, Wondrich points out drolly, as referring to a bong hit as “glaucoma medicine.” “A ‘julep,’ you see, was medicine, pure and simple, and always had been.” From the Persian “gulab” - literally “rose water” - the word exclusively referred to sweetened medicinal liquid for some 300 years. “Somebody somewhere was kidding,” writes David Wondrich, in his magesterial Imbibe!. But add in Mint Juleps? Suddenly it’s a multi-day event, and the thought of dressing up like a carnival barker from the 1930s seems necessary. The Kentucky Derby without the Juleps would be shorter than a commercial break, and just as skippable (I can’t be alone here). The same jaded bartender who rolls his eyes at your request for a copper Moscow Mule mug will not only accept but insist on a traditional pewter cup for your Mint Julep. ![]() It is simultaneously exuberant and genteel, a sign of a great party and yet deeply serious, and has found favor in everyone from Teddy Roosevelt to Margaret Mitchell. It is essentially a large cup of whiskey, and yet has been embraced by every strata of society as perfectly acceptable to have several on a Saturday afternoon. It evokes a sense of 200 years of Southern history that is almost impossibly sanitized, and no one seems to mind. Take a moment to consider its achievements: As a cocktail, it violates almost almost every drinking norm we have, so easily spanning apparent contradictions so as to make the impossible possible. That much is clear to just about everybody. The Mint Julep doesn’t give a damn about the rules. Note: an earlier and much more concise version of this article appears at Robb Report.
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