CNN
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It’s impossible to think of another cocktail and sporting event so closely interwoven as the potent, leafy Southern sipper and America’s most famous horse race.
“The mint julep has probably been with us since the very first Kentucky Derby,” says Chris Goodlett, senior curator of collections at the Kentucky Derby Museum, which is adjacent to the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky.
Juleps – mint and sugar stirred with crushed ice and spirits like bourbon and rum – were a staple of genteel society below the Mason-Dixon line since the early 1800s, guzzled by Virginian farmers in the morning as a restorative.
The…
