Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Blueberry Mint Julep!

You don't need to watch horses run in circles to enjoy this drink.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m looking forward to the dog days of summer already. Let’s make a drink designed for scorching weather, with a little fruit twist. Mastering your muddling game is great for mojitos and other awesome summer drinks. Here’s a solid opportunity to practice – it’s a blueberry mint julep. Here’s the recipe:

Blueberry Mint Julep

2 ½ oz Woodford Reserve Bourbon

½ oz vanilla simple syrup

8 mint leaves

10 fresh blueberries, or other berries of your choice

Angostura bitters

Add fruit and mint to a mixing tin. Pour just enough bourbon into the glass to cover the fruit and mint, roughly 2 oz. Muddle the contents of the tin gently, just enough to break the skin of the fruit. Add remaining ingredients, except for the bitters, and 2-3 ice cubes. Shake well. Double strain the drink into a rocks glass filled to the brim with crushed ice. Add more ice if needed. Garnish with mint, 2-3 blueberries, and 2 dashes of bitters.

This is a very old drink, dating back to at least 1803. In John Davis’s book Travels of Four and a Half Years in the United States of America, he describes the mint julep as “a dram of spirituous liquor that has mint steeped in it, taken by Virginians of a morning.” Not my idea of a breakfast beverage, but it is one way to start the day. Henry Watterson recorded this recipe for a mint julep around the turn of the century: “Pluck the mint gently from ‘its bed, just as the dew of the evening is about to form upon it. Select the choicer sprigs only, but do not rinse them. Prepare the simple syrup, and measure out a half-tumbler of aged bourbon. Pour the whiskey into a well-frosted silver cup full of ice with several sprigs of mint - just to sniff the fragrance. Throw the simple syrup away.’”

Despite the bravado concerning strong spirits, this drink is technically challenging for a bartender. There’s no mixers in this glass, unlike a mojito. The only thing diluting this drink is meltwater from the crushed ice. But the crushed ice melts very quickly on a warm summer day; this drink changes in character rather quickly as you drink it. The surface area of ice in contact with the booze is much larger when you are dealing with pebble ice, as opposed to one large cube. As an experiment, taste this drink straight from the tumbler, then once it’s in the glass, and again a minute after you’ve poured the drink. The flavor profile changes immensely as the amount of water in each sip increases.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. The cocktail galloped away shortly after this photo was taken. Matthew Hooper 

Woodford Reserve Bourbon: True confession: Bourbon is my least favorite spirit right now. It’s not that I dislike the taste, per se. It’s that the market is full of semi-rich white guys and techbros hunting for “rare” bottles as status symbols. It’s hit the point where the hucksters and scam artists aredangling the bait for guys chasing rarity over taste. These days, going bourbon shopping means fighting past nouveau-yuppies who want to lecture bore me with stories about their distillery tours.

I slipped a good word to my local liquor store, and they grabbed me a half-pint of Woodford Reserve from the back. Woodford is authentically Kentucky, with zero pretense. Smart bourbon drinkers will taste the gimmicky “limited edition” bottles, but they always circle back to this bourbon.

If you don’t want to play the bourbon game, cognac or peach brandy are excellent options. That julep recipe from 1803 refers to “a spirituous liquor,” not necessarily bourbon. Turn of the century drinks generally used cognac or brandy as their base, and it would certainly work here.

Vanilla simple syrup: Ordinary simple syrup works, but I happened to have some vanilla syrup that played nicely with the fruit and mint. Equal parts sugar and water, plus a whole vanilla bean, heated on the stovetop until clear. It keeps forever in the fridge.

Blueberries: Any ripe, juicy fruit will do just fine here. I’d suggest fresh peach slices or strawberries as options.

Mint: As fresh as possible, no exceptions. The more fresh mint you use to garnish the glass, the better. This is a great way to take revenge on a mint plant that's threatening to take over your yard.

Angostura bitters: The bitters look striking on top of the ice, and provide some needed spice to a mild drink.

Garnish: A big sprig of mint or two on top of the glass is a must. You need the scent of mint to perfume the drink. Without the garnish, the drink doesn’t read as “minty.”

If you want good pebble ice, you’ll need to crush some ice cubes by hand or do some judicious shopping. On balance, I think smashing up some ice cubes and adding them to the drink is best. Water quality is a big deal in this sort of drink, and ice from a fast food joint might be dubious.

Any tools you can use to reduce the rate of ice melting will increase the quality of the drink. If the ice melts too fast, the flavor of the cocktail fades away. The traditional silver cup holds its temperature better than glass; if you have one, this is a great time to bring it out.

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below! Seriously, my boss is awesome, if you like reading my recipes please chip in! And if you'd like to buy some bar gear or books from Amazon, please click here! 

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