Mint Juleps

A mint julep consists of mint syrup, bourbon, ice and a sprig of mint.
Ideally the ice is crushed or shaved and the julep is served in a silver cup.
Proportions of syrup and bourbon vary from 1 bourbon/4 syrup to 2 bourbon/1 syrup.
You should also provide water in case anyone wants a weaker drink.

To make mint syrup: Take a bunch of mint and at least a cup of sugar for every three cups of water. Turbinado sugar really is better, so look for it in the store, but if you can't find it white sugar is fine. Bruise each mint leaf with the back of a spoon and roll in the sugar (the mint and sugar are inside a closed ziploc bag when I do this). Then let mint and sugar sit for a few hours or days. Boil up mint, sugar and water until sugar is dissolved and water is brown. Chill, leaving at least some of the mint in the syrup as it chills (e.g., if you funnell the syrup into bottles, drop some of the boiled mint in.) But if you keep the syrup for months, take the mint leaves out so they don't rot or something.

Cup: Your proper julep cup has almost straight sides -- I believe you'd call it an inverted conical frustrum -- but another popular cup for juleps is the Jefferson cup, invented by Jefferson, that is sort of round and shallow with a small flat bottom. About as wide as it is tall.

--John Crouch