1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK

a big glass, plenty of fine ice, a little sugar, a teaspoon of Demerara rum floated between the two ripe sticks of fresh ripe Pasig River val– ley p.ineapple, in a big sloping-sided glass holding a full English pint of sixteen ounces. And lots of mint, for it takes a real clutch of the herb for fragrance. But let us inject a word of caution to seekers after this miracle of frosted perfection. No man can rough and tumble his Julep-making and expect that luck must always be on his side, that a lovely arctic frosted thing shall always reward his careless ignorance. Especially on yachts or boats, for instance, no Julep glass can frost when stood in any considerable wind. Frosting depends solely upon condensed moisture being converted to minor ice through the ex– cessive chill of melting cracked ice and liquids withll that glass. Therefore if the breeze whisks it away there can be nothing left to frost. Paradoxically, when the outside of any Julep glass is moist from careless rinsing, handling, or standing about only partially iced in humid weather, frost will be in total lack due to excess moisture. Likewise no Julep can ever frost when caressed by the warm, bare palm of an impatient host or guest-not any more than decent frost– ing can ever result from wet, half-melted cracked ice that is more liquid than solid. Just obey the rules, few but important, and success will crown every amateur effort. Actually if we would forget all the eternal nonsense about Juleps and obey the few common sense rules, everyone could save their strength for enjoyment of this institution. I. Chill glasses, whether silver cups or otherwise. 2. Use glasses of sixteen ounce capacity. 3 . Use two and a half jiggers of likker for sixteen ounce glass, two for fourteen ounce. 4. Use red-stemmed mint, simply because red-stemmed mint is more pleasantly aromatic. Use fresh mint, and cut stems short just before put– ting in as final garnish-to make them bleed. 5. Don't bruise that first installment of tender mint leaves more than very slightly. The inner leaf juices are bitter and cannot have profitable