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Mint Julep

A chilled cocktail made with mint, spirit, ice, sugar, water, lemon juice, sherry, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Julep

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mint base

  1. Strip the tender leaves of mint into a tumbler.

  2. Add your choice of wine, brandy, or spirit.

  3. In a second tumbler, put pounded ice.

  4. Pour the mixture from the first tumbler onto the ice and back until well mixed.

  5. Place the glass in a larger glass filled with pounded ice.

Make the sweet mixture and finish

  1. Dissolve the sugar in boiling water, then mix in lemon juice and sherry.

  2. Add cold milk, stir well, and strain through a jelly bag.

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 + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mint + winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Supplies the fresh, aromatic mint flavour that defines the drink.
Wine or brandy
Provides the alcoholic base and body that carries the mint flavour.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the drink and offsets the sugar.
Sherry
Adds fortified-wine depth and extra flavour to the sweetened liquid.
Pounded ice
Chills the drink and dilutes it gradually as it melts.

The step that matters

Pouring the mixture back and forth over pounded ice. Pouring between tumblers over ice chills and dilutes the spirit evenly. Mixing until well combined keeps the mint flavour and alcohol evenly spread rather than uneven from one sip to the next.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, lemon, sherry, milk. 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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