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Pendennis Mint Julep

A mint julep made with sugar, water, mint leaves, crushed ice, bourbon whiskey, and garnished with fresh mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and mint 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 ↓

Pendennis Mint Julep

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a dry silver cup, place one lump of sugar.

  2. Add enough water to soften the sugar and crush it.

  3. Add a few leaves of fresh mint.

Build and serve

  1. Fill the cup with crushed ice.

  2. Pour in 1 ½ ounces of Bourbon whiskey and stir until frost appears on the outside of the cup.

  3. Cover the top of the cup with short‑cut mint, inserting the stems down.

  4. Add straws and 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. Sugar + minttop 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

Bourbon whiskey
Provides the spirit base and the main flavor of the drink.
Crushed ice
Chills the drink and dilutes it slightly as it is stirred.
Fresh mint
Adds aroma as the leaves release their oils when crushed and packed in ice.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the whiskey's strength.

The step that matters

Stir until frost appears on the outside of the cup. Stirring the whiskey over crushed ice chills and dilutes it. Frost on the cup shows the drink has reached a cold, properly diluted state before serving.

“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.

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