Cocktails and good booze
For the most part, you shouldn't drink really, really cheap nasty booze, even in mixed drinks. In mixed drinks, you want decent, middlin' booze. And you keep the really, really GOOD stuff for drinking straight. Really, really good stuff shouldn't be mixed.
Bu there are some exceptions to mixing the good stuff. There are a handful of cocktails that you can make with good booze. A martini, for instance -- it's not shameful to take a really good gin and mix some really good vermouth with it.
Yesterday, fibro_witch, temima, vonbeck, and I decided that the mint julep is also in this category. See, the day BEFORE yesterday was Derby Day. So I'd been thinking about juleps. And folks came over yesterday. And I wanted to make mint juleps.
But we didn't have any fair-to-middlin' bourbon. I had Booker's, and Ben had Woodbridge Reserve.
We argued about the proper way to make juleps, of course, and how to best make an approximation, given that we didn't have silver cups or shaved ice. So, naturally, we had to try a few different methods and do taste tests.
In general, what we discovered is that putting crushed mint and sugar in bourbon doesn't drown out the bourbon -- you can still taste the complex flavor profiles -- and it is therefore perfectly reasonable to use good bourbon in mint juleps.
We also discovered that muddling the mint with sugar and bourbon, then adding ice and water and stirring, keeps the color amber and bright, while muddling the mint with water and sugar, and then adding the bourbon and ice, leaves it muddy-looking. Still tastes good, though.
Bu there are some exceptions to mixing the good stuff. There are a handful of cocktails that you can make with good booze. A martini, for instance -- it's not shameful to take a really good gin and mix some really good vermouth with it.
Yesterday, fibro_witch, temima, vonbeck, and I decided that the mint julep is also in this category. See, the day BEFORE yesterday was Derby Day. So I'd been thinking about juleps. And folks came over yesterday. And I wanted to make mint juleps.
But we didn't have any fair-to-middlin' bourbon. I had Booker's, and Ben had Woodbridge Reserve.
We argued about the proper way to make juleps, of course, and how to best make an approximation, given that we didn't have silver cups or shaved ice. So, naturally, we had to try a few different methods and do taste tests.
In general, what we discovered is that putting crushed mint and sugar in bourbon doesn't drown out the bourbon -- you can still taste the complex flavor profiles -- and it is therefore perfectly reasonable to use good bourbon in mint juleps.
We also discovered that muddling the mint with sugar and bourbon, then adding ice and water and stirring, keeps the color amber and bright, while muddling the mint with water and sugar, and then adding the bourbon and ice, leaves it muddy-looking. Still tastes good, though.