Mint juleps!

A mint julep is a mystical experience. I learned how to make a makeshift version of the beverage a couple of years ago, and I've wondered ever since if they're not the best argument in favor of the Confederacy winning the war. The author of this recipe would probably be appalled that a non-Southerner had even read it. (I refuse to be called a Yankee; I live farther from New England than he did.) But it does carry a certain amount of the grace of the part of the South that still considers itself antebellum.

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....

A gentlemanly H/T to Fr. Jim Tucker, with whom I regret that I'll probably never get to share a mint julep this side of heaven.