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Mint Julep, American
Put a sprig of green mint, a heaped tea-spoonful of sugar, the rind and juice of a lemon, a glassful of gin, and a glassful of sherry, into a large glass jug. Fill it up with powdered ice, and pour quickly from one jug into another for a minute or two. Rub the edge of the tumbler with a pineapple, if it is at hand. Drink through a straw or reed. Probable cost, 3d., exclusive of the gin and sherry. It will be sufficient for one person.
A Victorian British reading of an American drink, closer to a shaken cobbler than anything served at Churchill Downs. Most of the work is in the ice and the pouring.
- "A glassful"Genuinely ambiguous. In Cassell's period a wine glass runs roughly 2 fl oz and a tumbler considerably more; taken as wine glasses the drink is about 4 fl oz of spirits and fortified wine, which is strong but plausible for one. Anything larger and the single serving becomes two.
- Powdered iceCrushed or shaved ice, not cubes. Wrap cubes in a clean towel and break them with a rolling pin or a mallet, or pulse briefly in a blender. The fine texture is what chills and dilutes fast enough for the drink to work.
- Pouring between jugsThis is throwing, an old bar technique that aerates and chills without a shaker. Use two vessels, hold them well apart, and pour in a long stream. A minute or two of it will dilute the drink appreciably, which is intended.
- Rind and juice of a lemonA whole lemon's juice in a 4 oz drink is assertive. Pare the rind in strips rather than grating it, so it can be strained out or left as garnish; the oils matter more than the pith.
- Gin and sherryThe gin of Victorian Britain was often Old Tom, lightly sweetened and softer than a modern London dry. A contemporary dry gin will read sharper; ease back on the lemon or add a touch more sugar. For the sherry, an amontillado or oloroso gives more body than a fino.
- The pineapple rimRubbing a cut pineapple round the tumbler's edge leaves a trace of juice and scent on the lip. Optional, as the original admits, but it is the one flourish that distinguishes this from a plain sherry cup.
- MintOne sprig, unbruised, tossed in with everything else. It perfumes rather than flavours. If you want mint on the palate, clap the leaves between your palms before adding them; do not muddle them to shreds in this style of drink.
- ServingStrain into a tumbler over fresh crushed ice, or pour the whole contents in unstrained. A straw is not decoration here, it is how a drink packed with ice is meant to be taken.
Cassell's may well be describing something it has heard about rather than something it has drunk. The julep reached British print through American travellers and through Frederick Marryat and Charles Dickens, both of whom wrote admiringly of the iced drinks they met in the United States, and by the later nineteenth century "American" on a drinks recipe in a British book often suggested "served with a great deal of ice", which was itself a relative novelty tied to the imported-ice trade. What survives of the original here is the mint, the sugar, the crushed ice and the straw; the bourbon or rye has been replaced by gin and sherry, which a reasonably stocked English sideboard was more likely to hold. The costing of threepence exclusive of the spirits points to a domestic manual rather than a bar book: the mint, lemon, sugar and ice are the housekeeping expense, and the drink itself is assumed to come from stock already in the house.