Nanea's Pineapple Mint Julep

A refreshing, fruity must have for any summer celebration!

Happy VJ Day! Today marks one of the many days the Allies celebrated as the end to the war in the Pacific. Nanea and her friends would have been young teenagers by the end of the war, and would be celebrating the end of the conflict and hoping for a speedy return of their friends and family who had gone off to war. Or maybe their celebrations were more subdued as they remembered the lives that had been lost in the conflict. Victory Days were fun, spontaneous holidays, but they also marked a very somber moment for families who had lost loved ones in the conflict. 

To celebrate, I decided to continue the summer of the mocktail at our apartment, and when I was looking around for something VJ Day inspired, I knew this was the treat that was meant to be featured. 

This tropical twist on the classic mint julep is appropriate for all ages, and comes straight from my 1943 copy of the Women's Home Companion Cookbook. Read on to see how you can bring this refreshing taste of history to life yourself!

The mint julep is a classic American cocktail, with history dating back to at least the late 1700's. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky is credited with bringing the drink to Washington, DC in the early 1800's. This allegedly happened at a hotel where the Willard Intercontinental stands today, and their Round Robin Bar boasts that they serve his original recipe there. My wife and I have had mint juleps at the bar, and honestly? They're not very good. But it's still cool to see a hotel bringing the history of this famous drink to life. 

Mint juleps are primarily associated with the American South, and have a special connection to the Kentucky Derby. They're also Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy's favorite cocktails, which means despite not really loving them personally, I've always had some fondness for them thanks to my favorite Star Trek character. 

This recipe is far from a traditional mint julep. The original is a pretty simple cocktail, featuring bourbon, mint leaves, sugar and water. This one straight from 1943 directs you to wash six springs of mint and bruise them with a spoon. Cover them with 3/4 of a cup of sugar, add 3/4 of a cup of lemon juice, and let it sit for about fifteen minutes. Next, add three cups of unsweetened pineapple juice and pour the mixture into a pitcher filled with ice. Top it off with three cups of ginger ale. Serve it over ice with mint for garnish!

This recipe is both delightfully simple and genuinely incredibly refreshing. It's a mocktail that feels like drinking a cocktail, but with zero alcohol, and the flavors are extremely family friendly. It's sweet and fruity without being too sweet or fruity, and it does produce enough to serve a small group. If you've got a bigger gathering, it's easy enough to make more or increase the recipe to create a bigger batch. 

(Also, if you're over the age of 21, you can definitely make this a real cocktail with almost no hassle.) 

I really love trying out recipes from my grandma's Women's Home Companion cookbook. It shows its age, and was clearly very well loved, which means you know it's one worth keeping around. It's given me good recipes for peach cobbler and banana bread, but this twist on the mint julep is possibly my favorite I've tried so far. I'll definitely be making these again, and it's fun to think about how Nanea or one of her family members might have had this exact same cookbook and thought they'd like to give this very recipe a try... maybe even during their impromptu VJ Day celebration on August 14, 1945! 

I hope you enjoyed this 1940's mocktail and that you're keeping cool through the rest of this very hot summer!

We will definitely be making a few more pitchers of this before the summer's done!