Home › Ginger and Ginger Ale › Havana Julep
Havana Julep
Crush six sprigs of mint and add one pint of grape juice, three tablespoonfuls of lemon juice, four tablespoonfuls of grapefruit juice, one can of grated pineapple, one half cup of sugar, and a little salt and nutmeg. Mix well and put on ice for an hour, until thoroughly blended, then strain through a fine sieve, and serve in glasses with cracked ice.
A temperance julep — no spirits at all, just fruit juice, mint and ice. The method is sound; only the can sizes and the sugar need thought.
- The hinge: crush, don't shredBruise the mint with the back of a spoon or a muddler until the leaves are glossy and fragrant, then let it steep in the cold liquid for the full hour. Tearing or blending the leaves is generally held to give a grassy, bitter drink.
- One can of grated pineappleCan sizes varied, so this quantity is genuinely ambiguous. A small (about 8 oz) can of crushed pineapple gives a balanced drink against a pint of grape juice; a large can makes something closer to a fruit punch base.
- Grape juiceA pint is 2 cups. This most likely means unfermented bottled grape juice of the Welch type — dark, sweet Concord rather than a pale varietal juice. If yours is that sweet, the sugar can be cut.
- SugarHalf a cup on top of sweetened canned pineapple and Concord juice is very sweet by current taste. Start with two tablespoons, dissolve it in the lemon juice before mixing, and adjust after the hour of chilling, when cold will mute the sweetness.
- Salt and nutmeg"A little" means a pinch of salt and two or three scrapes of whole nutmeg. Both are there to sharpen the fruit, not to be tasted as themselves; grate the nutmeg fresh or leave it out.
- StrainingA fine sieve removes the mint and most of the pineapple shreds. Press the pulp lightly to recover the juice, but do not force it through or the drink goes cloudy and thick.
- The ginger ale questionThe recipe itself adds no ginger ale. A splash of chilled ginger ale in each glass lengthens the drink; served as written it is undiluted and quite intense.
- YieldRoughly three cups to a quart of strained liquid depending on the size of the pineapple can, or four to six glasses over cracked ice. Crack the ice in a towel with a mallet rather than using cubes — the small shards chill fast.
A julep in the American sense means a sweetened, iced drink heavy with crushed mint, a form generally traced to the early nineteenth-century South, where it was usually built on whiskey or brandy. In this recipe the mint, the sugar, the cracked ice and even the name are kept, while grape juice and canned pineapple take the place of spirits.