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Mint Julep

A chilled mint-infused beverage made with claret wine, fruit juices, sugar syrup, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mint Julep

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 1 quart of water with sugar for 20 minutes to make syrup.

Make the mint infusion

  1. Separate mint into pieces.

  2. Add the mint pieces to the boiling water.

  3. Cover the pot.

  4. Let the mixture stand in a warm place for 5 minutes.

  5. Strain the mint infusion.

  6. Add the strained infusion to the syrup.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix in the strawberry juice, orange juice, and lemon juice.

  2. Cool the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a punch bowl.

  4. Add claret wine to the punch bowl.

  5. Chill the punch bowl with a large piece of ice.

  6. Dilute the punch with water.

  7. Garnish with fresh mint leaves and whole strawberries.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Strawberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together726 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together549 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Strawberry + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the boiled water to make a sweet syrup that balances the acidic juices.
Fresh mint
Releases its aromatic oils into the hot water, flavouring the punch.
Claret wine
Adds body, tannin and alcohol, giving the punch its main flavour and character.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and cuts the sweetness of the syrup.
Strawberry juice
Adds fruity flavour, colour and some sweetness to the punch.

The step that matters

Strain the mint infusion. Leaving mint pieces in the liquid over time can make the infusion bitter and grassy. Straining after a short steep keeps the flavour fresh and clean.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, wine, orange, lemon, mint):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine, orange, lemon, mint. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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