Jalapeño Juleps: Sin or Sinfully Delicious?

The Derby may be over, but summer has only just begun. And summer in the South necessarily means mint juleps.

I love mint juleps. Love. I might judge you if you don’t share my feelings. It might have something to do with bourbon being my favorite form of alcoholic indulgence. Now, there are good juleps and there are terrible juleps, and unfortunately the bad often far outnumber the good. This might have a lot to do with people using shitty bourbon, probably because they know no better. I am lucky in that my main girl, Kirsten, literally got a master’s degree in bourbon. She has pointed me towards some of the tastiest (and sadly underappreciated) bourbons I have ever put in my mouth. I owe her multiple people’s first-born children for this.

Because Kirsten has got this ish on lockdown already, there really is no need to turn this into a “how to make a mint julep” post.  I asked her today, because I have been told such a thing in the past, if it was considered appropriate to add a splash of soda to the top of a julep. Her response, and I quote: “NO SODA SPLASH ARE YOU A MONSTER.” There you have it, folks. Bourbon. Mint. Sugar. Ice. That is all. Seriously, get your butts over to Chronderlust already and check out Kirsten’s post on how to make the world’s best julep —> here <—  I would not lead you astray. Today I decided to do something a little different. I threw caution to the wind and made a jalapeño simple syrup to use instead of sugar. And fuck me but did it turn out HOT. I am still a julep purist, don’t get me wrong, but this added a fun little kick that would be good with hearty foods or salty snacks.

hot hot hot!

To make a simple syrup, all you need to do is bring 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar to a boil with whatever add-in you want, then let it steep off the heat for 20-30 minutes, cool, strain out the chunky bits, and store indefinitely in the fridge in a sealed container. I’ve made ginger, a variety of herbs, and now jalapeño. I used 2 chopped peppers, seeds included, and steeped for 20 minutes. I would suggest using 2 tablespoons TOPS of the syrup per mint julep. Because I am a bad Southerner, I do not have my own julep cup yet. Instead, I used a jelly jar, which I deem to be an acceptable substitute. Enjoy outside in the sunshine, preferably with good friends and equally good music.

Heaven.