Big hats, bets and bourbon — it’s time for the Kentucky Derby!
The 2026 Kentucky Derby will take place Saturday, and whether you watch in-person or enjoy the scene from home, chances are you may do so with a mint julep in hand.
Mint, sugar, crushed ice and bourbon are all you need to recreate the leafy Southern sipper, but there’s an art to the longtime staple, a drink that has become synonymous with the race.
Nearly 120,000 mint juleps are served over the two-day period at Churchill Downs, according to the racetrack, an amount that requires over 10,000 bottles of bourbon, 1,000 pounds of freshly harvested mint and 60,000 pounds of ice.
The mint julep became the official drink during the 1930s, when Churchill Downs started serving it in souvenir julep cups, which it ordered for the first time in 1937, according to Sarah Brown Meehan, former director of lifestyle communications at Churchill Downs.
Meehan added that the drink was clearly a Kentucky Derby tradition well before the 1930s when it became “official.”
“It’s even believed that Churchill Downs planted mint outside the clubhouse for the first Kentucky Derby’s juleps in 1875,” she said. “We know that juleps were a big part of the event by prohibition because the press at the time lamented the Kentucky Derby without its favorite drink.”
Chris Morris, former master distiller for Woodford Reserve, adds that the modern mint julep came west from Virginia where it was known as a “Virginia dram.”
“As Virginia began to encourage the settlement of its western territory (Kentucky) in the 1770s those early Kentuckians brought two things with them — stills and horses.”