As we near the end of our kitchen renovation (yes, I will write about that here. Someday.) I am going through stacks of papers that we had in the bookshelf of the old kitchen. Today’s item is a ragged, yellowed-with-age recipe for a mint julep that I clipped from the Washington Post back when we lived in Alexandria and had a plentiful amount of mint growing in our yard.

Julep

No sampling of bourbon recipes can omit instructions for making a mint julep, a powerful drink that visitors to Kentucky generally find themselves drinking very slowly. A silver julep cup is the ideal vessel for serving the drink as it can be chilled so well, but a glass tumbler does quite nicely in a pinch. This and the following two recipes (not shown here) have been adapted from Marion Flexner’s superb cookbook “Out of Kentucky Kitchens,” published in 1949.

• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar (or more, to taste)
• 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon water
• Shaved or crushed ice to fill the goblet
• 1 to 2 ounces Kentucky bourbon
• Few sprigs of fresh mint

Place the sugar and chopped mint in a small bowl. Bruise the mint well with a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon, until the mixture becomes paste-like. Add the water and stir into a thickish green syrup. Fill a julep cup or glass half full of shaved ice. Pour the mint syrup and then the bourbon to taste over the ice. Fill the glass to the top with additional ice and garnish with sprigs of mint. Just before serving imbed a straw deeply into the crushed ice and cut it to the approximate height of the mint.

I must have made this recipe. In fact I think I did and decided that I was not a fan of mint juleps. I really should try again. Maybe in early May of next year.