Skip to main content
Drink

Mint Julep

A chilled cocktail made with mint, sugar, ice, water, and whiskey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mint and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,592 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Mint Julep

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound ice to fill the number of glasses needed.

  2. In each glass, add 3-4 sprigs of mint and 2 sugar cubes.

  3. Fill the glass with ice, stir, press, and shake until the sugar dissolves.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour in enough water to fill the gaps in the ice, leaving an inch from the top.

  2. Stir to mix the sugar, then add 1 tablespoon of whiskey.

  3. Stir again, and the julep is ready to serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mint
Releases aromatic oils that give the julep its characteristic fragrance.
Sugar cubes
Sweetens the drink and helps bruise the mint to release its flavour.
Whiskey
Provides the spirit base and warming flavour of the drink.

The step that matters

Stir and press the mint with sugar until the sugar dissolves. Pressing the mint gently releases its oils without shredding it, which would make the drink bitter. Dissolving the sugar fully before adding whiskey ensures even sweetness throughout.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More mint julep recipes

Brandy 3 See all 58 →

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes