A True Mint Julep

A repeat from an entry on my bartending blog Transmissions from Agent J at last year's Derby season:


To paraphrase Mark Twain, everybody talks about the Mint Julep but nobody ever does anything about it.

I recently read some magazine article - can't remember where now - that talked about how played-out, overrated, and overhyped the Mint Julep is. They talked to some bartender who said she rarely is ever called upon to make one, except by the occasional rube tourist at Derby time. The article also stated that although people go through the motions of having Mint Juleps for Derby, few people actually like them and they toss them aside after a few token sips for tradition's sake.

I posit that the reason these people feel this way about the Mint Julep is because they've never actually had one prepared properly. Hint: it doesn't come from a pre-made bottle, it doesn't come from a store-bought syrup, and it doesn't come from a mix. That this goes without saying should go without saying.

If you really want to do it right, follow the poetic instructions of General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. to the absolute letter. Failing that, here's my simple solution that doesn't involve simple syrup:

Granulated sugar
Powdered sugar
Fresh mint leaves
Finely crushed ice
Bourbon

Muddle one pinch of mint with the granulated sugar in a metal Julep cup. Some will tell you to just gently bruise it and not pulverize it, but I say go nuts and pound the hell out of it. The granulated sugar will help give you something to grind against.

Fill the cup to the top with finely crushed ice, fine as a Sno-Cone. Pour bourbon almost to the top, then add your second pinch of mint. It's your second pinch, that will garnish the top, that you want to just mildly bruise and not smush into pieces. Then dust the top generously with powdered sugar.

Those with bourbon-sensitive palates should note that a proper Julep, contrary to how it's commonly fixed, is essentially bourbon with a little mint and a little sugar, NOT mint and sugar with a little bourbon. If you prefer bourbon-based drinks in which you can't taste the bourbon, you might consider the likelihood that bourbon-based drinks are not for you.

Also note that a metal cup is a must - preferably a genuine Julep Cup intended for this purpose, and if it's an antique one (see image of mine above), all the better. If you're doing it in a container made of glass or plastic, don't even bother. Just have a Gin Rickey instead or something.

Alternate versions: if you're dead set on having a Mint Julep even though you don't like bourbon, may I recommend cutting the bourbon somewhat with either Barenjager (my first choice) or Southern Comfort. I suppose eliminating the bourbon entirely in favor of these beverages is permissible - what the hell, it's your drink, buddy - but the thought of it makes the purist in me all fremdschämen.

Sandy's Hamburgers

Tonight I've been doing a little research for my proposed fifteen-volume encyclopedic work What Used To Be Where, Back In The Day (and you thought I was joking about that, didn't you?)

In the course of my studies, I just happened across a delightful web page devoted to the long-since-departed Sandy's Restaurant in Louisville. Sandy's, apparently a Scottish-themed burger joint, had a girl in a kilt and a plaid beret for their mascot and served a specialty burger called a "Big Scott". They operated one location in Paducah and three locations in Louisville. Of the Louisville stands, one was at 5009 South Third St. (pictured above in a photograph taken on October 16, 1971) another was at 1007 W. Broadway, and the other was at 1420 Poplar Level Road. The Paducah stand was at 1726 Broadway.


There's nothing like a gang of retro-obsessive hunter-gatherer archivists to restore my faith in the human condition. These people are hardcore serious about reconstructing the lost memory of Sandy's for posterity, as it should be. Here's an example from their site to illustrate their zeal:

"The 1968 Sandy's locations list shows one of these locations as a possible 1967 opening. The 1973 list shows Poplar Level Road as Sandy's #317 and 3rd Street as #318 which points to a 1973 opening. Perhaps these locations were rebuilt as the new mini or maxi Sandy's restaurants as some locations were switching to the new buildout at this time and maybe they were renumbered into the 300 range at that time.

Robby Delius shows yet another scenario by providing both the 1965 and 1969 city directory listings for Louisville which shows Poplar Level and S. Third Street as being in existence in 1965 as well as 1969!"

We need more people like this in America.

And it gets better. It turns out that this lovingly detailed paean to preserving memorabilia related to the Sandy's of Louisville is actually just one page among many in a greater effort to hoard photos, menus, and even signage from every Sandy's restaurant that ever existed on Earth. It could take two hours to absorb it all, and if you're as much a card-carrying member of the Society For The Preservation Of Everything as I am, then you will devote those two hours to this holy work.


But wait, there's more!

Sandy's is just the tip o' the iceberg - that link is actually just one small fraction of Captain Ernie's Showboat, a truly leviathan site that assiduously sniffs out all available effluvia regarding a whole raft of obscure and neglected stuff from our collective childhood of the Midwest - everything from Romper Room to Cactus Jim to the Davenport, Iowa Morning Farm Report!

Life is good.