Given the prominent role of refreshing alcoholic beverages in Louisiana culture, this Yankee in the South has decided to compare two cocktails and the contexts in which they are consumed. Today we’ll focus on a stereotypical cocktail from the North, the Manhattan, and a quintessential southern staple, the Mint Julep.
First, the Manhattan. My experience began, not in Manhattan as you might expect, but in San Diego, California, where my husband and I moved so he could pursue his PhD in political science. Matt discovered Manhattans in Daly City, a suburb of San Francisco, where he lived after college. One night, in a lounge bar called Joe’s, complete with a Frank Sinatra-like singer, after seeing a few patrons sipping a cool looking drink, Matt and his friend asked the waiter what it was and ordered accordingly. The Manhattan has a dark amber color and is served in a martini glass. It offers a flash of heat when swallowed and was fitting for Joe’s smoky, dark, loungy ambience.
In San Diego, at the first of many graduate school parties, two things happened that set a precedent for all parties to come. First, a classmate, Mark, brought his croquet set and we all quickly learned that croquet was ideally suited for the slim, wiry physiques of most would-be political scientists and the ability to hold a cocktail in one hand while swinging a mallet in the other. Second, Matt made a Manhattan. His new classmates noticed how “cool” it looked. It wasn’t the best tasting cocktail nor did it fit San Diego’s sunny, warm, beachy atmosphere. What mattered most was how sophisticated we all felt holding our Manhattans while satisfyingly smacking a ball through hoops.
Fast forward to Shreveport, Louisiana, April 2014. A friend has given me a bunch of spearmint from her garden and I decide the best thing to do is make a Mint Julep. The recipes I found called for making “a simple syrup,” which is supposed to set for hours or even days. As an impatient Yankee, I didn’t want to wait days or even hours. So I sought advice from my new Louisianian friends by posting on Facebook: “What is a good, easy Mint Julep recipe that doesn’t involve making syrup that you have to cook for half the day?
Immediate responses. For the simple syrup question, my friend Jan, who hails from West Virginia, wrote: “Sorry, Jen, but you MUST MUST make the simple syrup. It is the law. I would dig out my grandmother’s old silver mint julep cups and lend them to you to inspire you, but I have no idea where the hell they are.” Before this thread, I hadn’t realized there were special silver cups from which you sipped Mint Juleps or that the vessel you poured Mint Juleps into was as important as the ingredients in the drink itself.
Then the anti-simple syrup contingent spoke up. Annette wrote: “Forget the simple syrup. Buy a gallon jug of bourbon. Pour out a quarter of it. Cut a bunch of fresh mint and shove as much as you can down through the neck of the bottle topping it off with a cup or two of sugar. Let it sit for a couple of weeks and then serve over crushed ice.” Edward, a former bartender and excellent cook, described his approach to Mint Juleps, thusly: “As a classic drink, it should be easy, rustic, and delightful. Throw some mint leaves in a glass, top it w/ a teaspoon of sugar (or preferably a sugar cube), and muddle that… Top that mix with crushed ice. Top that with bourbon. Stir, swizzle really, with a bar spoon or the skinny end of a kitchen spoon. Drink. You should have a respectable perspiration buildup to ensure maximum enjoyment. Very simple, very easy.”
At first, I was puzzled by having to build up a respectable perspiration while making an easy drink, but then realized one builds up perspiration while doing nothing in Louisiana. I was also embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what a muddler was, and then even more embarrassed that after Edward described it to me, “looks like a baby’s baseball bat, or a small cudgel,” I realized I owned one as part of a bar set given to us as a wedding present.
Chris Brown, Centenary College’s Archivist, posted my favorite comment of all, a quote by a Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., who took the making of a Mint Julep to idyllic heights:
Go to a spring where cool, crystal-clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew-washed ferns; in a consecrated vessel, dip up a little water at the source. Follow the stream thru its banks of green moss and wildflowers until it broadens and trickles thru beds of mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breeze. Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home. Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age, yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start.
I was mesmerized by this bucolic, utopian process until I realized I had no dew-washed ferns, consecrated vessel, or decanter of masterly handcrafted Kentucky Bourbon. Nor did I know where a stream trickled through beds of mint. Edward alleged we didn’t need babbling brooks, we could just wash everything in a drainage ditch and dispense with formalities. Lt. Gen’l Buckner, Jr.’s vision would have to wait.
Angie, president of Slow Foods of North Louisiana, offered to host a mint julep party later that week, and I was all for it. We gathered at her house on a late Friday afternoon. She brought out silver cups, that I believe were passed down from her grandmother, and served Juleps made with a simple syrup, mint from her garden, good bourbon, and crushed ice. She even loaned me a wide-brim, Scarlett O’Hara-type hat to complete my experience.
These are my conclusions. The Manhattan represents many of our stereotypes of the North: elegant and urbane, looks better than it tastes, is made quickly. You buy all of its ingredients (whiskey/bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters, ice, and a maraschino cherry) in a liquor store. The one ingredient that you might have found in nature, the cherry, is a bright red bundle of manmade chemicals. It’s best served in a martini glass. You make it quickly. It’s the “Mad Men” drink – moody, sophisticated, elegant, and dark. None of us in San Diego ever wondered about its history or any customs and rituals associated with it. We came, we saw, we concocted, we drank.
The Mint Julep represents many of our stereotypes of the South: sweet, refreshing, rustic but more complex than it seems. It tastes as good if not better than it looks. The ingredients can be purchased in stores, but historic customs and rituals compel one to try to derive them from nature as much as possible. It is not made one way, but in multiple ways, with all would-be mixologists insisting their way is the best. It is served in ancestral vessels. You don’t simply make a Mint Julep quickly. You ponder the ingredients, collect them, and whether you swizzle or muddle, the telling of stories of how Juleps are made is an essential part of the process. Mint Julep perfection requires you slow down and be patient.
Both Cocktails achieve the intended purpose. One is made with haste and ideal for impatient multi-taskers who insist on a drink in one hand. The other is made, for me, through a painstakingly-long process, but the careful process of creating the cocktail invokes the spirit of the antebellum romanticism, simpler times, and traditional convocation. Manhattans can be consumed while playing a game or attending an event, but Mint Juleps are the event you attend.