The Mint Julep! The perfect, refreshing cocktail for when the sun gets a little too hot. Here are my top five recommendations for bourbons to use in a Mint Julep, along with a simple recipe guideline below for all of us to follow.
How To Make A Mint Julep
Recipe:
- 2oz bourbon
- 1oz sugar syrup
- 8 mint leaves per serve (feel free to experiment)
- Quite a bit of crushed ice (gather ice cubes in a freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin)
- 1 Julep Cup.
Method:
- Place your mint leaves and the sugar syrup in the bottom of the julep cup and gently muddle them together. You don’t have to crush the mint, just gently press it to release those minty oils.
- Add your bourbon! Stir all of these things together and then start adding your crushed ice.
- Stir everything until you start to see condensation across the entire cup.
- Top with more crushed ice, a sprig of mint, and a straw.
- Enjoy your Mint Julep!
Woodford Reserve, 43.2% ABV
BUY NOW: $22.99
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The classic! It would be impossible to talk about this cocktail without mentioning Woodford Reserve. This is a bottle that took over the world when it came to availability, affordability, and consistency. Not to mention versatility.
With a heady 18% rye content, this has plenty of punch underneath all of the sweet, buttery corn. The high rye content means it can mix well with massively powerful flavors such as mint and sugar syrup in the julep to give you a fabulous balance.
Every year Woodford does something special at The Kentucky Derby to celebrate the race’s cultural significance in Kentucky. The event also celebrates the social importance of bourbon in the state. You can get a standard mint julep all day long at the race, but Woodford also offers the opportunity of the $1,000 julep!
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For those lucky folks who attended in 2024, you got the option of a $1,000 and a $5,000 julep. The former is served in a silver cup adorned with 44 green crystals, whereas the latter comes in a gold cup with 44 synthetic white sapphires. Quite a treat for the 150th anniversary of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Four Roses Single Barrel, 50% ABV
BUY NOW: $34.95
We can’t talk about bourbon and not mention Four Roses. Now this is a personal recommendation for a bourbon to use in your julep.
Depending on which recipe of Four Roses your single barrel is from, it will give you an unbridled depth of flavor to any cocktail. When paired up with mint – no matter the contents of the bottle – it just allows everything to get up and dance in the most marvellous way possible.
I’ve always described Four Roses as butter in a bottle, the single barrel is the absolute epitome of that. In a Mint Julep, you get all of the tropical fruits that start to move around as the texture of mint, sugar, and bourbon works its way over your tongue. Simply delicious.
Eagle Rare 10 Year Old, 45% ABV
BUY NOW: $39.99
I am writing this in the UK and it’s very easy to source a bottle of Eagle Rare 10 Year Old over here, but I know that stateside it can be something of a mission to acquire a bottle. Due to that, you may not want to use it in your cocktail, but I’m a fan of trying anything once.
Eagle Rare has always had these incredible red wine notes to it. You could even go as far as saying that it is sherry or port-influenced due to the level of red fruit, raisins, and milk chocolate that can be found in the liquid.
It’s interesting to think about how this is the same mash bill as regular Buffalo Trace and all of the Stagg bottlings, just in the middle regarding age, and ABV. But in the Mint Julep, Eagle Rare will give you a very elegant level of balance, depth, and complexity that is hard to get from a lot of other similarly aged bourbons.
Angel’s Envy Port Cask Finish, 43.3% ABV
BUY NOW: $29.99
On the subject of possible port cask influences, here we actually do have one! Angel’s Envy has had one of those mythical developments in the world of bourbon. From tourists asking about it in foreign countries, driving the demand from international suppliers, it has arrived on most shelves across the globe now and has happily lived up to the reputation it developed for itself.
The distillery was founded by Lincoln Henderson, who is responsible for helping to launch and develop Gentleman Jack and Woodford Reserve. With those two things on your CV, you can literally do whatever you want after that.
There are more port cask-finished bourbons than you would imagine, but this standard and widely available expression is going to give your summertime drinks another level of levity. Port always provides these effervescent notes to whiskey. In a Mint Julep, expect some incredible top notes of red fruit and elderflower, all intertwined with butter, oak, mint, and sugar. Sublime.
Mellow Corn, 50% ABV
BUY NOW: $14.49
So this one is a more unusual recommendation for the Mint Julep, as technically it isn’t a ‘bourbon’, but rather a corn whiskey. With a much higher percentage of corn compared to bourbon, and matured in refill casks (that’s the really important part) – Mellow Corn is a little throwback to the past but in all of the best ways possible.
With a label design that hasn’t changed from the late 1940s, with a proof and price point that is also a little more old school compared to some of its similarly priced, higher alcohol alternatives, it is a bargain. Price-wise, it falls at $20 or below, and flavor-wise it is a little youthful, but when mixed with the mint and sugar syrup it allows that corn to become even more buttery and sweet.
A great and affordable American whiskey alternative.
The History of The Mint Julep
A little history on the Julep. The name itself derives from an old Persian word meaning ‘roseater’. English Juleps, compared to the more modern American ones always used to contain camphor, were lightly alcoholic, and were normally used for medicinal purposes.
However, that was also the case for the American alternative. The original Julep was, again, used for medical purposes in the mid-1700s onwards in the United States. It was the development of ice houses that turned the Julep into what we know today.
We know that the Julep in its modern form originates from Virginia. Soon the cocktail had conquered the whole of the US due to its widespread acclaim and refreshing ability in those long American summers.
Check out more whiskey cocktail recommendations here.
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