Author Topic: A little story, history and libation recipe for the derby weekend  (Read 2141 times)

Offline Kyjames

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I apologize upfront for the long-winded writing below. I thought this was an interesting story and wanted to share it.

I think I have found my new favorite mixed drink, the Mint Julep. I have ordered some in the past and thought they were terrible. Being a Kentuckian, I actually found this troublesome as this is a Kentucky and KY Derby tradition.

I recently found a framed reprint of a letter on the wall of a local BBQ restaurant. The letter (written by Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.) is a reply to a request for a Mint Julep recipe. It sounded like it was worth an effort to recreate and I did. It was a very fine drink. Thereupon, I did a little research on this letter and learned the following:



First, some biographical information:

General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.

July 18, 1886 - June 18, 1945
General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was an American general during World War II. He served in the Pacific Theater of Operations and commanded the defenses of Alaska early in the war.

His father was Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., who surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donaldson. He was also the 30th Governor of Kentucky. Buckner was raised in the rural hills of western Kentucky near Munfordville, and attended Virginia Military Institute. He later won an appointment to West Point (class of 1908) from President Theodore Roosevelt. He served two tours of duty in the Philippines. During World War I, he served as a brevet major, drilling discipline into budding aviators.

Between the wars, Buckner returned to West Point as an instructor (1919-1923) and again as instructor and Commandant of Cadets (1932-1936). He was also an instructor at the General Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and was executive officer at the Army War College in Washington, D.C.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, Buckner was promoted to Brigadier General and assigned to fortify and protect Alaska as commander of the Army's Alaska Defense Command. Though comparatively quiet, there was some action with the attack on Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska, Japanese seizure of the islands Kiska and Attu (June 1942), Battle of Attu (Operation Landcrab, May 1943), and "invasion" of Kiska (August, 1943)

In July, 1944, Buckner was sent to Hawaii to organize the Tenth Army, which was composed of both Army and Marine units. The original mission of the Tenth Army was to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan; however, this operation was canceled, and Buckner's command was instead ordered to prepare for the Battle of Okinawa. This turned out to be the largest, longest, and bloodiest sea-land-air battle in American military history. On June 18, 1945, Buckner was standing between two boulders watching the first combat operations of the 8th Marine Regiment when he was mortally wounded by coral fragments dislodged by an artillery shell. He was the highest ranking US Army officer to give his life during WWII, while exercising troop command. Upon his death, he was promoted to full General.

Buckner is interred in the family plot at Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky.



The cause for the later correspondence:

In June of 1935,: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, accompanied by his Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, gave the graduation address at West Point. Included in the scheduled activities on Graduation Day, 12 June, was a cocktail reception for the President and his entourage at venerable Quarters One. The Superintendent, Major General William D. Connor, was a teetotaler but, nevertheless, a conscientious host. With the advance intelligence that the President "liked his liquor red," Connor consulted with the born and bred Kentuckian who lived next door, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. The Supe and the Com decided that mint juleps would be served at the reception and that Buckner would oversee their preparation.

A hot Graduation Day was correctly anticipated. Huge blocks of ice were delivered to the quarters, an enlisted detail crushed the ice, and juleps were prepared and served to the thirsty guests. The juleps were well received by all, particularly the President. Buckner later divulged that a waiter approached him at the reception and said, "Sir, Colonel, the President wants another drink, but I don't think he oughta!" General MacArthur prudently declined a second julep, saying, according to family legend, "No, thank you. I think I will stop now while I still know who is President."

Two years later, General Connor made plans for another June soiree--this time a reunion luncheon for his own Class of 1897--and again decided to serve mint juleps. To obtain the recipe, he drafted an elegantly worded request and sent it to his former Com, now commanding the 66th Infantry (Light Tank) Regiment at Fort Meade.





The Solicitation


HEADQUARTERS
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY
WEST POINT, NEW YORK

March 22, 1937.

My dear Buckner:-

We are very much like the man I read about whose family were teetotalers and would not have any liquor in the house. His uncle, that is, his mother's brother, was quite different and quite profane. The uncle said that wouldn't you know it for a damned perversity of inanimate things that mint should grow like a weed and spread everywhere in Mary's garden, when the only damn use she ever made of it was for tea and jellies, whereas he, an honest Christian gentleman, who could have used square yards of it for an honest drink known as mint julep could not make it grow in his garden at all. The similarity rests in the fact that our mint bed grows with leaps and bounds and we are going to make use of it at graduation in June.

The fame of the mint juleps that you served the day The President was with us has travelled far and wide, so that even the echoes have made a resounding noise in the House of Connor. I tried to establish my own position in the matter by alleging that I made and served mint juleps to enthusiastic groups even before you entered West Point, but again, the "prophet was not without honor save in his own country," and my definite instructions were to get your recipe for mint juleps and, furthermore, to use your recipe and not try any of my own homely recipes. Knowing that the ability to manufacture a mint julep is no less precious and the pride in it no less great than the ability to make a good cocktail, I, of course, am sore as a pup at the lack of marital confidence, but peace is such a lovely thing that I shall be eternally grateful to you, or even for a longer period, if you will send me on the recipe that you prescribed for President Roosevelt.

I warn you that if you hold out on me and leave out any important ingredient, I shall be accused by the dominant element in our family of having, through jealousy, used my own recipe, and in view of our long friendship, I am trusting you not to interfere with or upset the entente cordiale that still exists between the greater and the lesser isles of our archipelago, notwithstanding the fact that I lay this largely to a fatal weakness in my wife's otherwise stern character.

If you will send me the recipe, it is just possible that I might let you help make the juleps, in which case I could not stop you from drinking one or two. Otherwise, I think that the entire brew is to be held sacred to the Class of 1897 which we are having at luncheon after the graduation exercises.

With warm regards to you both and thanks in advance for the pure and unexpurgated recipe, believe me, as ever,

Faithfully yours,
Wm D. Connor





The reply and the Recipe


March 30, 1937

My dear General Connor,

Your letter requesting my formula for mixing mint juleps leaves me in the same position in which Captain Barber found himself when asked how he was able to carve the image of an elephant from a block of wood. He replied that it was a simple process consisting merely of whittling off the part that didn't look like an elephant.

The preparation of the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages can be described only in like terms. A mint julep is not the product of a FORMULA. It is a CEREMONY and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of happy and congenial thought.

So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as follows:

Go to a spring where cool, crystal-clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew-washed ferns. In a consecrated vessel, dip up a little water at the source. Follow the stream through its banks of green moss and wildflowers until it broadens and trickles through beds of mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breezes. Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home. Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon, distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start.

In a canvas bag, pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow, keep it dry and do not allow it to degenerate into slush.

In each goblet, put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from the decanter until the goblets are about one-fourth full. Fill the goblets with snowy ice, sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outsides of the goblets dry and embellish copiously with mint.

Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until Nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glittering coat of white frost. Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.

When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden, where the aroma of the juleps will rise Heavenward and make the birds sing. Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblet to your lips, bury your nose in the mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.

Being overcome by thirst, I can write no further.

Sincerely,
S.B. Buckner, Jr.

__________________________________________

Now, I admit I did not use a bag but a blender (I beg the forgiveness of my sires). On the first attempt I did place the blender’s glass container in the freezer to get it cold so as not to make the crushed ice slushy. (It actually does make a difference. I rushed the process the next night, the ice got slushy and the drink did not seem as good as the first one. I think the dry snowy ice may be more abrasive and may help release the mint flavor from the added mint leaves during the frosting of the cup.)

The only reason I can come up with for not liking the julips I had previously tried is that these were made with simple syrups and extracts.


I hope my ramblings were neither too long nor too boring.

James

I found the above information at the following web address:
http://www.thebuckne....com/index.html
http://www.rememberthedeadeyes.../GeneralBuckner.html
"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."

-- James Wilson (Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790)

 

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