Message 14798 of 22774 in Behind the Bar

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I like this one from the ideal bartender by Tom bullock

A testimonial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which appeared in the
form of an editorial, Wednesday evening, May 28, 1913, at a time when
Col. Roosevelt was vindicating, by a libel suit, his reputation for
sobriety and temperance.


    Colonel Roosevelt's fatal admission that he drank just a part of one
    julep at the St. Louis Country Club will come very near losing his
    case.

    Who was ever known to drink just a part of one of Tom's? Tom, than
    whom there is no greater mixologist of any race, color or condition
    of servitude, was taught the art of the julep by no less than Marse
    Lilburn G. McNair, the father of the julep. In fact, the very cup
    that Col. Roosevelt drank it from belonged to Governor McNair, the
    first Governor of Missouri, the great-grandfather of Marse Lilburn
    and the great-great-grandfather of the julep.

    As is well known, the Country Club mint originally sprang on the
    slopes of Parnassus and was transplanted thence to the bosky banks
    of Culpeper Creek, Gaines County, Ky., and thence to our own
    environs; while the classic distillation with which Tom mingles it
    to produce his chief d'oeuvre is the oft-quoted liquefied soul of a
    Southern moonbeam falling aslant the dewy slopes of the Cumberland
    Mountains.

    To believe that a red-blooded man, and a true Colonel at that, ever
    stopped with just a part of one of those refreshments which have
    made St. Louis hospitality proverbial and become one of our most
    distinctive genre institutions, is to strain credulity too far. Are
    the Colonel's powers of self restraint altogether transcendent? Have
    we found the living superman at last?

    When the Colonel says that he consumed just a part of one he
    doubtless meant that he did not swallow the Mint itself, munch the
    ice and devour the very cup.

And this is a classic too....

My dear General Connor,

     Your letter requesting my formula for mixing mint juleps leaves me in the 
same position in which Captain Barber found himself when asked how he was able 
to carve the image of an elephant from a block of wood. He replied that it was 
a simple process consisting merely of whittling off the part that didn't look 
like an elephant.

     The preparation of the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages can be 
described only in like terms. A mint julep is not the product of a FORMULA. It 
is a CEREMONY and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of 
the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation 
of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a 
statistician, nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of 
hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the 
flower-strewn paths of happy and congenial thought.

     So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the 
procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as 
follows:

     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 through its banks of green moss and wildflowers 
until it broadens and trickles through beds of mint growing in aromatic 
profusion and waving softly in the summer breezes. 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.

     In a canvas bag, pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make 
it fine as snow, keep it dry and do not allow it to degenerate into slush.

     In each goblet, put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, 
barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into 
this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from the decanter 
until the goblets are about one-fourth full. Fill the goblets with snowy ice, 
sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outsides of the 
goblets dry and embellish copiously with mint.

     Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper 
manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until 
Nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful 
phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glittering coat of white frost. Thus 
harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a 
beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.

     When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden, 
where the aroma of the juleps will rise Heavenward and make the birds sing. 
Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblet to your lips, bury your nose in the 
mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.

     Being overcome by thirst, I can write no further.

Sincerely,
S.B. Buckner, Jr. 

and i can't find the one about mixing the mint sugar and ice in one glass and 
the whisky in another, discarding the mint sugar and ice and drinking the 
whisky but i'm sure it's out there!
-- 
"Manners maketh the man, Bourbon, vermouth and bitters maketh the Manhattan"