1946 The Stock Club Bar Book by Lucius Beebe

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nearest thing extant to the American national drink, the classic of classics, the colonel's delight, a snare and engine of destruction for the unwar·y, the ever changing yet immutable and changeless mint julep. The fallacious belief that adequate juleps cannot be served, obtained or appreciated anywhere north of, at the very extremity of geographic possibility, Baltimore, has long since vanished in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The julep can and does flourish, green-bay-tree like, within the boundaries of Man– hattan and, more specifically and even more handily for present purposes, in Fifty-third Street not 1;l seltzer squirt from Fifth Avenue. Space, the informed intelligence of the author and the patience of thirsty readers all militate against any prolonged discussion of the several and various aspects of juleps. The author has hoisted them gratefully in silver chalices of half quart capacity in Maysville, Kentucky, overlooking the incomparable vista of the Ohio as the Chesapeake and Ohio's "George Washington"has rolled dovm the valley at summer dusk. He has lifted them in the perfumed precincts of a springtime garden in Charleston in little gold toddy mugs that were prized in the family still owning them when gentlemen wore court swords on the street and satin breeches and silver buckled pumps were taken for granted. He has drunk drastic juleps in Natchez-Above-the-Levee that made him ,.Vonder how the Mississippi packet ga~blers of the fifties with their skirted coats and the Rem– ington derringers concealed in lace cuffs could see a hand of cards. And he has accepted juleps that were a sacrament in old walled gardens in New Orleans while the sailors fought fistfights and the town tarts paraded the ill-lit and uneven pavements of Royal Street nearby. All the juleps were good. Some seemed better than others, but that was only because the others had been drunk first.

105: Night

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