So I have been fighting a new addiction lately, more powerful than even Demon Rum. It’s called Twitter. (If you aren’t following me yet, shame on you. Click here… now!) Up until a week ago, I’d have called Twitter completely useless fun, but now I only call it mostly useless fun. Someone’s retweet brought to my attention a little book called Old Man Drinks: Recipes, Advice, and Barstool Wisdom. I thought it might be good for a laugh, so I punched Amazon’s Buy Now button.
Not only was I not disappointed in Old Man Drinks, I was pleased way beyond my expectations.
What I expected was a book full of funny quotes from geezer barflies, illustrated with pictures of said geezers. The book certainly delivers on the quotes, such as:

I’ve taken an involuntary vow of celibacy.
—Pablo, 69, janitor

and

A little booze’ll make you charming, a little more will make you an ass. I hope to ride that line tonight.
—John, 68, painter

There are many better one’s in the book, but I chose those two since the author already shared them via the book’s own Twitter feed.
Many of the photographs are charming and show that age can be a beautiful, if sometimes haunting thing. The layout is very well done as well. For just these things, Old Man Drinks would be worth the fifteen dollar cover price (ten bucks on Amazon). But what really surprised me are the recipes to be found inside.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, but I guess I was looking for Boilermakers, hard shots, with perhaps the Martini and Manhattan presented as drinks for old Fancy Dans.
Instead, you find in Old Man Drinks as wonderful collection of classic cocktails, the kind of drinks we cocktail geeks love to rediscover and riff upon. Yes, there’s the Arnie Palmer, but the next page has the Aviation (Modern Bar version). For every Cuba Libré, you will find several Ward Eights. Ol’ Harv is there, but so are the Pisco Sour and the Sazerac. There is even a drink called the Grumpy Old Man.
Each recipe is presented with a chatty discussion about the drink, or its history, or it origin.
It is not a comprehensive collection of drinks, but one generally well suited to the theme. A few may not seem on the surface to be Old Man suitable, and the case made for these drinks can be somewhat tortured. I still do not understand why Queen Elizabeth II’s fondness should make the Dubonnet Cocktail an Old Man drink….
The author, Robert Schnakenberg, claims on his website, Schnakworld, to be America’s Most Beloved Author and Raconteur.

Now that’s just silly, Doug!
You are America’s most beloved Raconteur!

Apparently, modesty is a vice both Robert and I have bravely fought off.
The exact extent to which Schnakenberg has been taken to America’s bosom aside, he has a very rich and varied oeuvre. Along with a bunch of youth sports books, some pop histories, and Old Man Drinks, he has titles such as Sci-Fi Baby Names. If that is not enough for the Sci-Fi fans out there, try what must surely be the ultimate compendium of all things awesome: The Encyclopedia Shatnerica: An A to Z Guide to the Man and His Universe

Old Man Drinks is a fun read for any of my readers, but more importantly a great gift/gateway book to give to that guy you know who thinks he’s a beer or wine guy, but you are sure would make a great cocktailian. It is a fun and engaging read that ought to give plenty of incentive to a neophyte mixer to try some of the classics resting therein.

Recently I received a copy of the just released book, Japanese Cocktails by Yuri Kato. In a sea of drink books out there, this one is different enough to write about, for several reasons.

The book mixes more than 60 beautifully photographed drinks with short sections on Japan, Japanese culture, and how cocktails inhabit a very different place in the culture of Japan than they do here in the United States. Some of these vignettes are personal experiences of the author, who was born in Japan, but now lives in New York. Others are related to the theme of a particular cocktail, or to the different ingredients in common use in Japanese cocktails. This book is the kind of cocktail book that I refer to as an a la carte drinks book. Each bit is interesting in itself, and while the book is well-organized, there is nothing in it that requires you to read it from start to finish. Instead, you can pick and choose whatever catches your momentary fancy and consume the book in whatever order you like.

The recipes are divided into four sections: Saké drinks, Shochu cocktails, Whiskey cocktails, and other drinks. There is some interesting stuff about the base ingredients here. For instance, I learned that saké is closer to rice beer than rice wine, and I got a chance to begin to understand what this shochu stuff is that I’ve had in my bar for months now. As I said, there are some gorgeous drink photos that do more than please the eye. Not only are Japanese cocktails often made with different ingredients, but they look different in many cases from western traditions. Something I really have enjoyed with this book is expanding my horizons in ways to garnish or serve drinks.

The drink picture I used to illustrate this review is actually one of the more western-style to be found in the book. The drink is called the Black Ship, named in honor of the American naval vessel of Commodore Matthew Perry, whose arrival in Japan forced an end to time of isolation. For two centuries plus, many had tried to bribe their way into the world of Japan, but Perry had the good sense to include a bunch of whiskey in his gifts. Whether this was the deciding factor or not, it can’t have hurt.

The Black Ship is a nice little drink, and it gives a good entry point to examine the subtle differences from ours in the Japanese way of mixology. Buy the book and continue the journey.

(Note: I modified this recipe from that in the book to account for how I personally made it.)

There is only one Beachbum Berry. He is the modern day’s preeminent sage on Tiki history and drink lore. And he appears to be a bit of a natural cult-leader, as most who hear him speak feel compelled to start buying Hawaiian shirts and rum in large quantities, and develop ninja-level knife skills with tropical fruit. Fortunately he employs his powers in bars, rather than in the jungles of Guyana or Washington. (UPDATE: He also uses his powers to send readers here! Welcome Idlers of March to the joint.)
He has written several books over his career that have apparently prevented him from starving to death, and my book purchase for this year’s Tiki Month was one of them, Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log. The Grog Log is a pretty little spiral-bound book that does each of its several jobs well. It begins with a tightly written history of American tropicalia, the forces that created it, and some of the personalities that shaped it. It discusses the market and cultural forces that finally killed Tiki as a commercial fad. Finally, Berry muses on how Tiki can re-emerge as more of a personal, DIY art form. The book was written in 1998, and I would say that all is proceeding as he has foreseen.
The second section is the obligatory, how-to-set-up-your-bar section of virtually any drinks book. The Bum saves this part from perfunctitude with the single best set of descriptions of rum types I have read to date. If all you need is a clear explanation of what the hell drink recipes are talking about when they specify “light Puerto Rican rum”, versus, “Rhum Barbancourt”, versus “gold Jamaican rum”, the Grog Log is worth it for that alone. I’m not saying the rest of the dissertation on measures, methods, and other ingredients aren’t well-done, but the rum section is just so darned… essential for Tiki drink making.
The meat of the book is the recipes. Unearthing and confirming these was not an easy task, and showed a lot of skill and knowledge beyond mixology. Sure, you can look around today and see all sorts of quality Tiki recipes from the old days. You can see them because most of them were unearthed by Beachbum Berry. Any complete bar library ought to have at least one of the Bum’s books. In the Grog Log, he serves up 84 of these historical artifacts.
Each drink is served up, one to a page, with a generous helping of vintage or original drawings or occasional cartoons. Along with an exacting recipe, there are specific mixing instructions and some good historical information on the origin of the drink. (Usually. As with all archaeology, some information is lost forever.)
An especially fun element of the book is the pictographic key at the top of each page. It starts with a picture of a little drunk guy, and you can tell from the extent of his disrepair how strong the drink is going to be. Next is an icon representing what the drink should be served in. Lots of drink books use icons like this, but how many use icons of flaming skull mugs? Lastly, there is an icon for preparation vessel, so you can screen for, or screen out, styles that you just aren’t feeling right now, blender drinks for instance.
At $9.95, the Grog Log is a super investment for the budding Tiki-phile, or even just the Ti-curious. If you’re a book snob and don’t like spiral-bound volumes, you can wait just a short while and buy Beach Bum Berry Remixed, which apparently compiles the recipes from the Grog Log, as well as the Bum’s other early work, Intoxica!, into a new volume. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say whether it will keep the raw, vintage feel of the Grog Log, and whether it will retain such cool features as flaming skull mug icons. I do mention it here however, becuase it gives me an excuse to end this post with the trailer for the upcoming book.
Wait.
When did they start putting out trailers for books?!?

A few mornings ago, the PeguWife called me in to see the local news. A local morning radio host and standup comedian named Dino Tripodis was on, promoting his new book, The 25 Days of Christmas Cocktailing: One Man. One Month. One Very Merry Mission. Since Dino is a very funny fellow, and the subject was cocktails, I sprang to Amazon to order a copy.
25 Days is a short, easy, and entertaining read, chronicling the author’s quest with some friends to invent and consume a new cocktail every single day from December 1 to Christmas Day in 2008. I’m not sure who would find a task like this more daunting, your average Joe, or someone who actually knows some mixology. His method for inventing the drinks was to come up with the name for the drink in the morning. (Some highlights: the We Three Kings Disoriented Are, and The George Bailey) He’d get home midday, and mix and taste to try to fit the name, then serve up his best result to his panel about 3PM. It is good to have self-employed friends…. Of course, this is not the way to produce an unbroken string of winner drinks, but the aim of the book is the humor and the journey, not the recipes.
Since Dino lives in that special hellish life known as being a “local celebrity”, he has to do things like answer long lists of questions from people like me, and do it with a smile. I therefore abused the privilege and I’ll illustrate this review with some of those answers.

The only difference between getting drunk with your mom as opposed to your dad is you feel worse about the fistfight afterwords.
—Dino Tripodis 1996

The drinks are presented in chronological order, and each has a quote from Dino’s standup act or his radio show, along with a tale relating how the drink came to be or something otherwise related.
I noticed a paucity of gin in his recipes, but hey, nobody’s perfect. Dino drank a lot of gin in college, he told me, but that’s because he tries “to be accommodating when it came to liquor choices and relationships. Lets not talk about the apple-tini run, if you don’t mind.”
Fat chance, Dino. I assure you that most of my readers are mocking you mercilessly right now….
One of the aims of the process, he says, was to give a workout to some of the bottles he doesn’t much use otherwise. He even added a few new liqueurs to his inventory during the adventure, like Chambord and Grand Marnier.
Although he invented the drinks last year, Dino is faithfully drinking them all again this year, day by day, which is a much easier task. Last year he had to drink the mistakes, too.

Doug: You make wise mention repeatedly of the removal of car keys, etc. In addition to all the bars in your home, do you also have several guest beds, or just a cab company on retainer?
Dino: Yeah, I don’t like anyone leaving my house impaired and have actually gotten in fist fights over it with certain friends who have said, “give me the keys or we’re fighting.” And my reply? “Well, c’mon then. I guess we’re fighting.” Yeah. The extra beds get the occasional guest, but mostly it’s the couch. And (lol) no cab company on retainer…yet.

(See the LOL from the professional comedian? And you thought I wasn’t funny!)
Despite his cocktail cred-ruining affinity for vodka (With women, vodkas are like shoes: the more you have to choose from, in both color and style, the better your chances of making a sale.), and his disdain for gin, Dino has more hooch-fu than he’s willing to claim. He was a bartender for a brief period in his youth. Today he has four bars in his home, including a fully equipped Basement Bar, a main floor bar with fridge, a bar in his home office, and an outdoor backyard bar for when the weather allows you to be outside when thirsty. He mentions a fifth bar in the book, but it has since been, um, pruned by his lady fair.
25 Days of Christmas Cocktailing is an OK drinks book, but a damn fine read about drinks and drinking. It is selling pretty well this year via online sales only, so you may see it in bricks and mortar shops next holiday season, along with a possible Advent calendar for the drunkenly devout. Though it is too late for you to buy the book and do all twenty five drinks along with Dino, it isn’t too late to order a copy as a gift.
If you’d like to find out more about Dino, he’s on Facebook and Linked In, as well as on his radio station’s website.

Colleen Graham, who writes about cocktails at About.com, has a pretty sensible list of New Year’s Resolutions for the cocktail drinker you look at in the mirror each day. Of course, not all of Colleen’s suggestions will apply you, or to me. I won’t reproduce the whole list since I don’t want to scrape her post, and since it is really just an intro to where I’m going anyway. But there are a few that bear looking at.

Resolution #1- Quality
I resolve that I will not submit myself to purchasing or consuming spirits that are on the bottom two shelves of the liquor store.

Some of you don’t need this resolution as it is already the central tenet of your existence. You should probably resolve instead to buy some Gibley’s every once in a while.

Resolution #5- Martinis
I resolve that I will refrain from referring to every drink served in a cocktail glass as a Martini.

Bless you for writing this, Ms. Graham. Bless you.

Resolution #8- Be a Courteous Host
I resolve to offer my non-drinking guests an elegant mocktail that makes them feel like adults.

I want to go on record as saying that I hate the word “mocktail”. Like “mixologist”, it is a stupid sounding word. I’ll add that they sound silly and sophomoric, just like my affinity for alliteration. But both words are just too darn useful to give up. I guess that we are stuck with them. Maybe if we use them enough, they eventually won’t sound so bad.
But much as I don’t like the word mocktail, I do like the concept. They are useful in so may ways, after all. Of course, they are there for the designated driver, who would otherwise feel (more) left out of an evening’s revelry. They also can be mixed into an evening’s drinking to extend said evening. Mocktails can be great for kids, especially as a good way to get them to drink their juice, dammit! And if you are driving a long road trip, have a mocktail with dinner. That way you can feel like you are having a civilized meal and still get in another two hours driving in on the way to Statesville, without falling asleep at the wheel.
Of course, the mac daddy of all mocktail applications is for mom-to-be. I’m not going to get into the debate on drinking while pregnant, except to say that clearly, drinking a lot while pregnant is a colossally bad idea. And just as clearly, the current Western school of public health believes that if too much of something is a bad thing, we should declare any amount of it to be a bad thing, since the helpless rubes who make up the citizenry can’t be expected to show any self-control.

I thought you didn’t want to get into this debate?

Sorry.
Regardless, several things are pretty settled: No alcohol during early pregnancy is a good idea, and if you drink in public while visibly pregnant, complete strangers will come up and “witness” upon you like a pentecostalist who has stumbled upon an underage ecstasy rave.
When Maggi was pregnant with our daughters, I was in my cocktailian (another silly word) infancy. I had no idea of the world of mocktails, and non-alcoholic wine was (and is) vile beyond human imagination. She was relegated to endless cranberry and sodas. It was genuinely a terrible sight to see.
But with the dawn of 2009 comes a new book with some splendid help in this arena from someone on my own blogroll!
Preggatinis is a neat little book by The Liquid Muse, Natalie Bovis-Nelson. I had pre-ordered this from Amazon a while back, and it was waiting for me upon my return from the Sunny South.
I’ll start off with the basics. This little digest-sized book is chock full of beautiful photographs, recipes, chatty writing that you’ll be familiar with if you read Natalie’s blog, and appropriate quotes from other works. In short, it is the picture of what I usually describe as an ideal modern cocktail reference.
The Muse’s muse must have been feeling particularly inspirational when Natalie set the format for this book. Most cocktail books are written for the world of
Nick and Nora Charles, or
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, where life is a series of tiny adventures called cocktails, to be found in a series of larger, unconnected adventures called parties, which are interspersed with a periods of down-time preparing for the next adventure. While none of us (well, almost none of us) really live that life, it works for the books. But pregnancy is a long trip, with lots of parts. Preggatinis is unique among cocktail books in that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Natalie starts with an extensive section on pre-pregnancy drinking. She gives us a few high-test drinks for the last fling, some healthy but tasty drinks to detoxify the system prior to production, and then some libations designed to ignite or enhance the, um, “initial manufacturing process”. Oh, and she even includes a liquid tranquilizer for the wait while the stick turns blue, or not.
The meat of the book is divided into three sections, with drinks designed for each trimester. The first trimester drinks, for instance, center largely on ginger drinks to fight the dreaded morning sickness, and folic acid-heavy mocktails to aid in crucial early development.
The last section deals with what to do when baby makes three (or four, five or more). As a woman returns to alcohol from nine or more months of teetotalage, there is wisdom in taking it easy to start. Especially if she’s breast-feeding. Natalie serves up a batch of “gentler” beer and wine-based cocktails, as well as some lower calorie concoctions for women who want to race Angelina back to their pre-motherhood fighting weight.
But Preggatinis is more than just simple recipes. In a vacuum, mocktails are, frankly, a pain in the ass. No one knows how to make them. Dad does not want, or need, to drink them in most cases. Natalie has some particularly helpful features in the book to address problems like this. Several drinks (I wish there were more) are formatted as follows, to make it easier to still go out drinking with the girls:

Momosa
(Champagne Flute)
Order it like this: Please bring my orange juice in a champagne flute. Add a splash of simple syrup, and top it with club soda.
….

Many drinks have an even more valuable instruction:

Fruity Folate Shake
(Tall Glass)
….
De-Virginize for Dad: Add 1 ounce coconut-flavored rum into the blender.

See what I mean? Cool huh?
But really, “De-Virginize?” Someone more creative than I please come up with a better new word than this linguistic relic of puberty. And do it before the second edition of this book comes out! Besides, the idea that a “Preggatini” is a “virgin” cocktail is… um… well as I write this, it is still Christmas….

I found another worthy entrant into the iPhone cocktail app sweepstakes: Pocket Cocktails, by Robert Maran and Deidra Jones. (Direct link to iTunes App Store here) Pocket Cocktails is a local App (like Cocktails), rather than a web app (an iPhone-formatted web page). It runs $4.99, which seems pretty middle of the road for Apps like this. If you are looking for a way to keep some mixological reference material always at hand, Pocket Cocktails is well worth evaluating.
The basic look is very Atomic Cocktail era, evoking Mercury Astronauts, mini skirts, and the Mambo. And it evokes them very well. The makers of this software come from the book publishing world, and it shows in the very professional and appealing design. The highlight of Pocket Cocktails is the beautiful, full-screen photo for each drink entry in the database. I was amazed at the quality of photos, and asked the author Robert Maran the source. He told me that he and his in-house photographer did all the pictures. I wanted to know if he used water or the real stuff and he said,

…we used real liquor and ingredients for EVERY drink; it’s completely authentic.
In fact we had about 50 liquor bottles that were 95% full at the end of the shoot. For some of the eclectic recipe ingredients we just needed one or two ounces from these bottles.

I feel certain that any number of us would be happy to help him with this terrible inventory problem!

The recipes (and original photography) largely come from a book previously published by Maran, Maran Illustrated Bartending. Maran Illustrated is a series of books similar in variety and format to the Dummies and Idiots series, covering subjects from Knitting, to Yoga, to Vista, with the added benefit of not carrying around a book declaring yourself to be an idiot or dummy. Unlike most Idiot and Dummy books, these are glossy, full-color jobs. Bartending is aimed at home or craft, rather than commercial, bartending, and would make a fine foundation-level book for the home bar library. (One quibble: Robert, please don’t tell me you really shake drinks as described in the book. It’s is just so very wrong!)

I’m sorry to subject you to that. Let’s get back to Pocket Cocktails and some specific features.
The App is laid out like all good iPhone software, in that it is laid out… like all other good iPhone software. The menu bar across the bottom of the screen gets you anywhere in the App from anywhere. You can browse the entire database in similar fashion to the iPhone phonebook, or browse by category. In either case, there is a thumbnail photo beside each drink in the list. You can also easily search by name or ingredient. The search function is live, so you see your selections narrow as you type. This is a lot more handy than you might think at first. The database contains a little over 300 entries, which is good, but smaller than most competitors. There is no Pegu here, so feel free to be utterly outraged by that.
Each entry has three pages. When you select a drink, the first page that opens is the photo page, so you can see what you are making. A pop-up menu near the bottom of the screen than allows you to toggle back and forth between the picture, the ingredient page, and the recipe page. This can be a little klunky, flipping back and forth between ingredients and mixing instructions, but it makes the text much more readable. There aren’t too many 11 ingredient, 9 step Tiki concoctions in here, so the back and forth usually won’t matter. In fact, Tiki drinks seem to get a little short shrift in all the drink apps I’ve looked at. I’d get upset about that, but I think I’ll let Trader Tiki and Dr. Bamboo call down the gods’ wrath themselves if they want to. Maran plans to add drinks to the database with future updates, and are looking for suggestions.
Every cocktail App needs a random drink feature, and every such App needs a gimmick. Pocket Cocktails combines the two, with the Shaker. Choose Random from the menu and give your iPhone a shake. As the phone goes to a random drink, a female voice utters a cutesy phrase, or you hear the sound of ice in a shaker. It is fun and creative, but I’d personally rather just have a bunch of ice shaking noises.
Technically, the software is very well written. The App is fast and responsive, and I really like the live search feature. Pocket Cocktails is the only cocktail database I’ve seen with it. The browser list works very well, but I’ll grouse that you need to be a little precise with your fingertip in activating an individual recipe from the list. There is a lot of white space in each entry that does not seem to be a live link, leaving you tapping with no immediate result. This may be intentional, as it makes browsing a little easier if your fingers are… um… unsteady. The software doesn’t have any bookmarking, or other method of marking your favorites. For those of with a mind like a steel sieve, this is a lack.
To sum up, Pocket Cocktails is a solid, smooth-running cocktail resource for the iPhone. Its database is smaller than some, but free of duplicates or total bullsh*t recipes. Its search function is the best overall that I’ve run across. And the pictures are absolutely gorgeous. The whole project has the warm feel of a labor of love. I am definitely keeping this App on my phone.

Here’s a list of the other posts here about Apple iPhone software:

• iPhone App From CocktailDB: Cocktails
• iPhone Cocktail Directories
• iPhone App: Pocket Cocktails
• Pocket Cocktails Update
• iPhone Software Review: Are You Smarter Than a Bartender?
• iPhone App From Cocktail Dreams: Cocktails App
• iPhone App: 101 Cocktails
• iPhone Cocktail Apps Contest!
• iPhone App: Flip 'N Drink
• iPhone App: Cocktails Made Easy
• iPhone Cocktail App: Cocktails+ is Free!
• The Corporate World Starts Getting In On iPhone Drink Apps
• iPhone App Review: Tiki+

This month’s beroman-numeraled cocktail throwdown is brought to you by Dinah The Librarian Sanders and Joseph The Lawyer Gratz, at Biblio.us, where they cleverly plead the 21st. This month’s decree excited me and filled me with trepidation at the same time. We are requested to produce for your entertainment and refreshment a libation from the Nineteenth Century.
Now, I likes me my older, classic cocktails. After all, the Pegu is hardly a spring chicken in the cocktail milieu. But it ain’t old enough for this test. My first trepidation was that I would be unable to work in my obligatory Pegu reference in this Mixology Monday post….

Ummm.
I think you just did.

Ah! Of course. Thanks.
My real worry concerned the fact that I don’t have the vast historical and encyclopedic knowledge of some of my cocktail blogging colleagues. I didn’t know if any of the drinks I know or currently wanted to try were of appropriate vintage. Fortunately, I found the exact book I needed to help me out on Amazon.com: The Flowing Bowl – 19th Century Cocktail Bar Recipes.

Ten bucks says five more bloggers bought this book when they saw this month’s challenge!

No bet! But let me take a moment for a micro book review. The Flowing Bowl is an exact reprint of the original typeset from 1898. The pages are tiny, and the language is… er… opaque. It is darned hard to find what I was looking for, which was informative recipes. Such recipes are only a small part of the book, and they are curiously arranged. There are huge sections on various boozes, as well as beer and wine. It is an interesting view into what and how people drank a hundred years ago or more. As an historical piece of evidence, it is a great buy. Don’t get it for the drinks recipes. I will insert a too long excerpt of one particularly entertaining bit from the chapter entitled Strange Swallows, which lists several things that people drink that were beyond comprehension to the author:

Plain Water, whether fortunately or otherwise, comes under the heading of Strange Swallows. It is still consumed in prisons, and other places where sinners and paupers are dieted at the expense of the ratepayer…. “Plain water,” wrote a celebrated Mongolian of his day, “has a malignant influence, and ought on no account to be drunk.” More especially if it be Thames water. (Upon seeing such water under magnification at an exhibition,) I counted three boa-constrictors, a few horrors which resembled giant lobsters, and a pair of turtles engaged, apparently, in a duel to the death. Three ladies… were carried out, swooning.

Anyway, the book did give me what I needed, which were the names of many drinks that were eligible for today’s extravaganza.
I went through a bunch of ideas before I decided to go with the classic Mint Julep. As a child of the Deep South, I feel almost obligated to love this drink. The problem is that I have simply never had one that I really much liked. So this weekend gave me the opportunity to try to whip one up myself that I could happily imbibe and recommend.

Now, ever since I read Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking Around the World by Charles H. Baker, Jr., which I reviewed here, I’ve been fascinated by Baker’s discussion of the once upon a time Julep Wars between Kentucky and Maryland over the base spirit in Juleps: Bourbon or Rye. I therefore decided to make parallel Mint Juleps, each pair differing only in using Maker’s Mark Whisky in one, and Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey in the other.
I used no single source for my mixing. I combined several books, some dim memories, and an episode of Good Eats that I fortunately still had on the TIVO.
I also fortunately have juuuuust a titch of mint growing out in the back yard….

So, what’s in a Mint Julep? Well, at its heart, it is whiskey, sugar, mint, and ice. For the hip kids out there, that pretty much makes it a brown Mojito. Some recipes call for simple syrup, but I think that granular sugar helps abrade the mint leaves, releasing more flavor. I elected to use some nice cane sugar cubes I have lying around.
So first iteration:

I muddled the sugar and the mint thoroughly, then added a tablespoon of hot water to help dissolve the sugar and release more mint oils. I put this mixture in the glass, filled it with ice, then stirred in the whiskey. I stirred slowly until the glass frosted. I garnished with a few unbruised leaves. Voila: A basic mint julep!
I tasted. Um.
Baker suggests in his book that rum makes a good addition, so long as no one from Kentucky or Maryland is present. If you are from either of those great states, please consider moving on to another MxMo post. We don’t allow gunfire here at the Pegu Blog.
I then added about an ounce of Pusser’s Navy Rum. I’ll take a moment here to note that I did not crush my ice. The cubes from my ice maker are pretty darn small as is, so I hope the purists out there will forgive me. If you have crushed or shaved ice, I would strongly recommend using it.
I tasted the second round. Better, but it still seemed a bit like a Stinger on the rocks, without the depth.
In rooting around with other recipes, I actually noted that the Flowing Bowl calls for using Brandy instead of Whiskey. I added a generous splash (about 3/4 oz.) to both mixes.
I also wanted to add a bit of… something else to it. A common garnish called for in more advanced Mint Juleps, especially in the older recipes, is sticks of Pineapple as a garnish. Well, I don’t got no stinkin’ Pineapple right now. Pondering what I could possibly use to shake things up a tiny bit, my eyes lighted on my little bottle of Orange Flower Water I have sitting on the bar. I added a little more than 1/4 tsp.
And again I taste. Well now!
No longer a dull Stinger on the rocks, this version caught my fancy. Here is a beverage that would cool you off, slake your thirst, and knock you on your ass. Just the thing for a lazy August afternoon in the heat, with chairs to be sat in and lies to be told. The next time I see a likely looking Pineapple, I’ll be trying these again. Please be sure to check out the other Mixology….

Hey! Wait just a cotton-picking minute here!

What?

You’re not done yet!
What about the Rye versus Bourbon thing?

Oh, that.

Yes, that!
What difference did it make? Which is better?

The Rye is better.

You are such a bastard!
How about why? Why is the Rye better? And have you noticed that no one makes Mint Juleps with Rye anymore?

Yes, I had noticed that. I also that no one drinks Mint Juleps anymore, except when already drunk and wearing funny hats on Derby Day. They have become the Kentucky equivalent of Pat O’Brien’s Hurricanes. Today’s Julep has devolved to a mixed drink, rather than a cocktail. And it’s only drunk as a seasonal oddity; a one day a year eggnog. And since few homes or bars even have Rye on a regular basis, you never see it used for the (very) occasional Mint Julep.
And that is a shame. I’m sure much of the difference is personal preference here, but I think the Rye makes for a more complex and interesting cocktail. In each and every variation I tried, I thought that the Bourbon version was duller and sweeter than the Rye. Bourbon has that characteristic caramelized overtone about it, and when combined with the sugar in the Julep, it drowns out the minor notes of the cocktail. The Rye version of the simple Julep I tried first was at least drinkable, the Bourbon version might as well have been a chilled glass of Southern Comfort. By the time I got to my final recipe, I thought both were good, but the Rye version was more interesting to drink, and was much more refreshing. It left the mouth feeling fresher and cleaner, and that is a result that I think you’d want for a summer tipple like this.

Exit Question: The traditional garnish for a Mint Julep would also include a stick or two of Pineapple and an Orange Wedge. Would including these make the Bourbon version better than the Rye?
Bonus Exit Question: Would including the Pineapple and Orange wedge make this pretty much a Tiki drink?
No go and enjoy all the other offerings from this month’s Mixology Monday.
Cheers!