In any case, it’s easy to imagine that the Mint Julep never really lost a foothold in the South. It drifted out of style in the early 1900s, and anyway, Prohibition came along in 1919 and so thoroughly obliterated drinking culture that it would take us 80 years to even start to get it back. It was popular all across the country in its day, and it’s “day” was almost 100 years. Mint Julep’s specific attachment to the South is less clear. It wasn’t until the last few decades of the century, those of whiskey’s ascendant quality and Cognac’s struggling production, that whiskey slid into the starring role, where it quite rightly remains. Juleps - the cocktail kind, with mint - quickly took root in Virginia, and soon were nationally embraced, the “first true American drink.” Like so many cocktails in the 1800s, early ones would’ve been with Cognac, or the less expensive rum. The burgeoning ice trade, started in New England in 1806, was by the 1810s shipping ice down south year round, and that’s all the drink needed to really take off. It travels from medicine cabinet to liquor cabinet by way of an English novel called Tom Jones in 1749, wherein a character describes a bottle of wine, jokingly, as a “medicinal julap.” It is similar, Wondrich points out drolly, as referring to a bong hit as “glaucoma medicine.” “A ‘julep,’ you see, was medicine, pure and simple, and always had been.” From the Persian “gulab” - literally “rose water” - the word exclusively referred to sweetened medicinal liquid for some 300 years. “Somebody somewhere was kidding,” writes David Wondrich, in his magesterial Imbibe!. But add in Mint Juleps? Suddenly it’s a multi-day event, and the thought of dressing up like a carnival barker from the 1930s seems necessary. The Kentucky Derby without the Juleps would be shorter than a commercial break, and just as skippable (I can’t be alone here). The same jaded bartender who rolls his eyes at your request for a copper Moscow Mule mug will not only accept but insist on a traditional pewter cup for your Mint Julep. It is simultaneously exuberant and genteel, a sign of a great party and yet deeply serious, and has found favor in everyone from Teddy Roosevelt to Margaret Mitchell. It is essentially a large cup of whiskey, and yet has been embraced by every strata of society as perfectly acceptable to have several on a Saturday afternoon. It evokes a sense of 200 years of Southern history that is almost impossibly sanitized, and no one seems to mind. Take a moment to consider its achievements: As a cocktail, it violates almost almost every drinking norm we have, so easily spanning apparent contradictions so as to make the impossible possible. That much is clear to just about everybody. The Mint Julep doesn’t give a damn about the rules. Note: an earlier and much more concise version of this article appears at Robb Report.
#CABIN FEVER WHISKEY SOUR HOW TO#
Hopefully this will be sufficient until I can figure out how to have time/energy to write both there and here.Ĭocktail Videos: I’ve only shot about a dozen of these so far, but they’re all available on YouTube.Ĭocktail Articles (updated 7.16.23): Airmail
Below is a linked & alphabetized list of every cocktail I’ve written about on Robb Report to date. Not just the what, but the why.Īnyway, thank you, again, for your continued visits and comments.
Content there is more abbreviated than the type of Saturn V-level nerdery that I usually host on this site, but it’s the same concept - for each cocktail, I tease it apart, and weigh in on both common variations and individual ingredient notes. Thank you for coming.įor the last two years, I’ve been writing at Robb Report. Obsessed with tiki drinks, clarified milk punches, rare spirits and syrups, Philippe is constantly looking for ways to use traditional techniques in new and innovative ways.I’m grateful and flattered that people continue to look at this blog, considering I’ve updated it once in the last four years. He is also the creative force behind Nightmare Pop Up on Jefferson, and for Absinthe Party Pop Ups. Philippe is the driving force behind Miracle Pop Up at Pamplona.
In 2012, he opened the bar program at Hurricane Hole in Grand Isle. In 2007, Philippe moved to Lafayette and became head bartender at Phares’. He became bar manager of Juniper in Mandeville, LA in 2005. After getting his start in restaurants under Anthony Toups, son of legendary Louisiana Chef Alzina Toups, Philippe went on to work for Paula Deen at The Lady and Sons in Savannah, Georgia (2003). He holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (2013) and Sommelier Certification from the Court of Master Sommeliers (2016).
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