This is indeed a pre-cocktail era beverage in that there’s no fruits or aromatics or whiz bangs to distract the drinker from how blindingly hideous the piss-warm back alley “whiskey” in it is. In the Julep any deviation in ingredients or technique stands out like a sore thumb. The whiskey must be outstanding, the mint ultra fresh and the ice must be almost snowlike in texture. The cup must be metal (preferably silver) because the high thermal conductivity allows a fine film of ice crystals to form on the outside of the cup, letting all the world know that this drink is Very Cold Indeed. The churn should be done with great care, making sure that each ice crystal in the cup is suffused with bourbon (without spillage). You should also use a julep strainer, so that with each sip the snow on top is washed with bourbon rather than sucking the slurry through a straw. A straw siphons off the good stuff, leaving you with a cupful of underwhelming meltwater after a few slurps. You could even wonder if it’s worth the investment in all these novelty cups and strainers and mountain of crushed ice. This is a good drink. This is such a good drink that while you’re juggling the strainer and the rim of the cup and doing your darndest not to spill you forget for just a moment that this drink is what it is because it’s the potable embodiment of the antebellum South. You forget that this drink is so cold because enslaved Americans worked in the heat all day and night, that it’s churned perfectly because spillage meant the whip, and that nobody asked if this drink was Worth It because this is How It Was Meant To Be. Damn this drink and all that it stands for, but oh man is it good.

I recommend using something like WT101 or Evan Williams Bonded. Extra Black while not bad is a bit too weak to be able to stand up to the melting ice, sugar and mint. Another way I have seen to make it was using rich demerara sugar and then throwing it all into a cocktail shaker and using larger cubes to basically muddle the mint, which has turned into my preferred method of making it because I can use a fine mesh strainer for the mint bits which bugs me.