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Drink

Mint Julep

A refreshing cocktail made with mint, water, sugar, whisky, ice, and fruit garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and whisky are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,008 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mint Julep

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Muddle the mint with water and sugar in a glass.

  2. Add the whisky and stir well.

  3. Fill the glass with ice and garnish with fruit.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + whiskytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Mint + whiskytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. 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
Supplies the fresh, aromatic herb flavour that defines the drink.
White sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the strong flavour of the whisky.
Good whisky
Forms the spirit base and provides most of the drink's flavour and strength.
Ice
Chills the drink and slowly melts in, gently diluting it as it is served.

The step that matters

Muddling the mint. Pressing the mint gently bruises the leaves and releases their aromatic oils. Over-muddling tears the leaves into small pieces that release bitter, grassy compounds, spoiling the drink.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, whisky):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, whisky. 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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