Before I get started on this post, I know that the drink I am putting forward has no real link to a julep per se apart from the ingredients being reminiscent of one. This is a tongue in cheek drink that was my piece de resistance for a small beverage program I threw together for a local cowboy saloon bar called The Duke.

A relatively simple gig that required a tightening up of their small cocktail menu, an expansion of their bourbon menu and a little sparkle. Training the staff on bourbon, boilermakers and cocktails was fun but the Ghetto Julep was the diamond in the crown.

Being a country bar in a small city, everything needed to be approachable and fun. Why would you not install a slushie machine and create a scratch made "julep" using Jim Beam White, Bols liqueur and scratch turbinado mint syrup.

After reading the bible, Dave Arnold's Liquid Intelligence; I had the basic formulas in my head but wasn't really prepared for the time it took to really nail the recipe down. 8 hours and 3 pages of math later, we had a finished product. The time was really chewed up by the mild trial and error in batching, freezing, tasting, tweaking and refreezing. But after all that time, we nailed down the texture, the flavor and the consistency we were looking for.

With Victoria and British Columbia's franchise restaurants having powder derivative

slushie drinks, the appeal for doing these isn't as strong as other markets but you sometimes have to redesign the wheel to make it roll better and this

is a start.

"Ghetto" Julep

2280mL (80oz or 2x40oz bottles) Jim Beam White

2250mL (75oz or 3x26oz bottles) Bols Liqueur, we used cherry and apricot

2450mL Mint Syrup, a 1:1.5 turbinado syrup infused with mint

11.5L water