It's Mint Julep Time Again

Tomorrow is Kentucky Derby Day, the one day a year when you just must drink bourbon, most likely in the form of a mint julep. Last year I gave you my go-to mint julep recipe which you can check out here. That recipe makes an awesome drink, but it's also a bit complicated, especially if you're trying to make juleps for a whole party full of people who are all drinking like racehorses.

So this year, I offer a simple, more scalable recipe for a quick, easy, and awesomely refreshing Mint Julep. You can use this same recipe to make one mint julep or fifty, and it should be quick and easy either way so have fun with it.

You'll need:
1. Bourbon. I'm going to use the new Early Times 354 Bourbon this year. Early Times Kentucky Whiskey is what they use at Churchill Downs for their standard mint juleps, but now that ET is selling an honest to goodness bourbon in the U.S. why not use that? It's affordable and pretty tasty to boot!
2. Ice - lots of it.
3. Mint - leaves, fresh, cleaned...picked from your garden if possible.
4. Simple syrup - boil 1 cup sugar in 1 cup water until dissolved, refrigerate until you need it.

Put the mint and the ice in a blender, blend until it has a nice snow-cone consistency. Fill your glasses (6-8 oz. old fashioned glasses are perfect) about 2/3 full with the blended ice/mint mixture. Pour in a couple ounces of bourbon and a dash of simple syrup. If you have a few mint sprigs left over use them for garnish. Enjoy while watching the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports!

Whiskey Book Review: Chasing the White Dog

For some whiskey aficionados, myself included, the renegade, outlaw spirit of whiskey is part of its overall appeal. It's as if we think that by drinking a product that has gone through various stages of legality and social acceptability throughout its history we can ourselves become just a bit more bad-ass, in that James Dean, John Wayne sort of way.

The book Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine, by Max Watman explores this rebellious side of whiskey lore and also delves into the world of curtains-drawn kitchen experiments in home-distilling. To anyone with an interest in whiskey or quirky Americana, this book is absolutely intoxicating. I found myself unable to put this book down - it is so well written that even the later chapters, chronicling the tedious details of a modern-day Virginia moonshine trial, draw the reader in like the best TV crime-dramas.

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