Why it works: Mint and wine work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 442 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Mint Julep
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Strip the tender leaves of mint into a tumbler.
Add your desired amount of wine, brandy, or spirit to the mint.
In a second tumbler, place some pounded ice.
Mix and chill
Pour the mint and spirit mixture over the ice.
Continue pouring the mixture back and forth between the tumblers until well mixed and flavored with mint.
Place the glass in a larger glass filled with pounded ice.
Remove it from the ice to see it covered in frost.
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.
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Mint + winetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together442 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tender mint leaves
- Provide the primary aroma and flavor of the julep.
- Wine, brandy, or other spirit
- Supplies the alcohol base that carries the mint flavor and aroma.
- Pounded ice
- Chills the drink and dilutes it slightly as it melts.
The step that matters
Pouring back and forth between the tumblers. Pouring the mixture between tumblers mixes the mint into the spirit and chills it evenly. Stopping too early leaves the mint flavor uneven and the drink too warm.
“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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