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So, because I am an absolute idiot, I forgot to bring the cord for my camera last week, and then…forgot to bring my camera home with me. And then…Well. This week? I forgot my cord again. So I have two cocktails from last weekend to share with you all, and one from last night, and I’ve currently got a pot of rhubarb syrup and a pot of blackberry syrup boiling on the stove, to make flavored mint juleps for Derby Day today. I’ll take pictures on my laptop when I make them, so you can all check them out.

In the meantime, I thought I would do a throwback and just post a nice, classic mint julep recipe for those of you who are curious.

When I started making mint juleps, I used a traditional recipe I found online. You can see the “official” mint julep recipe here.

But since then, I’ve learned more about bartending and have developed personal tastes and preferences and rules like “don’t add water to good bourbon.” So here’s the recipe I’ve been using the past couple of years:

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
1 cup whole fresh mint sprigs, with 4 mint sprigs reserved
2 oz brown sugar simple syrup (or plain white sugar simple syrup)

Instructions
Add ice to two julep cups or regular rocks glasses if, like me, you don’t own julep cups
Put ice in a mason jar
Add all the other ingredients to the mason jar
Close the mason jar and shake.
Remove ice from glasses, strain contents of mason jar into glasses

Why a mason jar and not a shaker? Well, two years ago, we were visiting my godfather’s parents on Derby Day. They’re like grandparents to me, awesome awesome people. Anyway, I told my parents we needed to run if we were going to get bourbon on time. My Nana took out her bourbon bottle and poured what was left in it into a mason jar– which was just enough for two drinks. So I mixed the drinks in the jar. It was amazing, ridiculously old bourbon, and that’s what the picture you see in this post is from.

In other news, we went to the garden center today. We got two new fig trees– one died over the winter. We also got two grapevines, some hops plants so we can make wet hops beer, and a heck of a lot of herbs. I’m most excited about the chamomile, and yes, I am going to be making chamomile syrup. We also got Mexican coriander, because they didn’t have any Vietnamese coriander, which was disappointing. We’ll see how that goes. Also some excellent lemon thyme and really strong apple mint, tarragon and lavender.

My dad also go a burn permit so the yard smells deliciously smoky. Of course, the town fire alarm just went off, and he’s convinced that the neighbors called him in for burning twigs in the fire pit.