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MINT, JULEP, AMERICAN (another way)
Put into a tumbler a dozen leaves of mint, young and fresh, with a tea-spoonful of sugar, and three table-spoonfuls of brandy or whiskey. Put some pounded ice into another tumbler, and pour from one tumbler to another, until the whole is thoroughly flavoured with the mint. A little pineapple juice is an improvement. Drink through a reed. Time, ten minutes. Probable cost 8d. Sufficient for one person.
A short, clear julep that relies on aeration between two glasses rather than stirring in one. The mint is bruised by the ice as it moves, so the pouring is the whole technique.
- The hinge: keep pouringThe mint is never muddled here; it is bruised against pounded ice as the drink passes from tumbler to tumbler. Pour back and forth briskly until the drink is thoroughly flavoured and the glass is well chilled, then stop. Working the leaves much past that point is generally held to draw bitterness out of the stems and torn edges.
- MeasuresThree tablespoons is about 1½ fl oz, roughly 40-45 ml. A Victorian tumbler was typically somewhere in the region of 8-10 fl oz, so the finished drink is mostly ice with a small, cold, strong pour.
- Pounded iceCrushed, not cubed. Wrap cubes in a clean towel and hit them with a rolling pin or the flat of a heavy pan; the ragged surface both chills faster and does the bruising work on the mint.
- "Drink through a reed"A straw, and in the period often a literal cut rye or wheat straw. Setting the straw close to the mint so the aroma reaches the nose is a later julep convention rather than anything this recipe asks for.
- MintSpearmint is the standard julep herb and what a Victorian kitchen garden would have grown. Peppermint is sharper and more medicinal in a drink like this; use it only if that is what you want.
- Pineapple juiceFresh pineapple was still a comparatively costly import in Britain when this was printed, which may be why it is offered as an "improvement" rather than an ingredient. A teaspoon or two is plenty; more turns the drink into a punch.
- SugarA teaspoon of granulated sugar will not dissolve readily in cold spirit. Either use a sugar syrup of equal parts sugar and water, or stir the sugar into the spirit before the ice goes anywhere near it.
- Time and yieldThe stated ten minutes plausibly covers the whole business of pounding ice and pouring; the drink itself comes together in two or three. One serving.
The julep reached British cookery books as an American curiosity, which is exactly how Cassell's frames it — the entry is headed "American". The word itself goes back through French julep to Arabic julāb, from Persian gulāb, rose water, and for centuries it meant a sweetened medicinal draught taken to make a dose palatable; the shift to a spirit-and-mint drink is generally traced to the American South in the early nineteenth century, where it was strongly associated with Virginia and Kentucky. The choice offered here, "brandy or whiskey", reflects a genuine period division: brandy juleps were common well into the century, and the bourbon julep's dominance came later. The instruction to drink through a reed is a reminder that the bar straw was originally an agricultural product, cut hollow grass stem.