How to take the Kentucky Derby Flyfishing - The Thirsty Thursday Review of the Early Times Mint Julep

It's that time of year, the biggest horse race in the country, hell, maybe even the world. That's right, this Saturday is the 139th Kentucky Derby. Talk all you want about this year's historic jockeys (a 50-year-old? a woman? the first black man to win the derby since 1902?) or the greatest athletes on the planet (4-legged track and field stars powerful and strong enough to be an accepted measure for engine strength), we all know what the Kentucky Derby's really about - it's one sordid southern party.

The official drink of the Derby is the mint julep. A refined cocktail that harkens back to old Loulvul (sic) Gentlemen in seersucker suits with Colonel Sanders beards, the julep is also the perfect drink to celebrate spring in full blossom, combining freshly plucked mint with sweet sugar and god's gift to man, good old Kentucky bourbon. According to Mr. Boston the correct recipe is "4 sprigs of mint, 1 tsp. powdered sugar, 2 tsps. water, 2 1/2 oz's of bourbon - in a silver julep cup, silver mug, or collins glass, muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water. Fill glass or mug with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig and straws." Muddle the shit out of that mint, too. That's key. And when done you'll have the classiest and most refreshing way to get hammered since the French invented champagne.

Most of my Kentucky friends are stand-up gentlemen of the first order. But as I told a couple hammered Louisvillians outside Ye Coach in Horses on Sunset, Hunter S. Thompson is a native Kentucky boy and told the world that the Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. And those drunk bastards agreed. And let's be honest - walk through rural Kentucky or watch all the backwoods drunks vomiting just outside Churchill Downs and the last thing you'll think of is southern class. Makes it strange to associate such twisted behavior with such a civilized beverage. No, I've had some mint juleps, made with craft by some great Kentuckians and the last thing the juleps make me think of is debauchery. But fear not, fellow drunkards. The folks at Early Times have made a quick and easy way to combine Kentucky class with all-time twistedness. Enter the Early Times pre-made Mint Julep.


With Derby Saturday 2 days away, I decided to do a little test run. And lacking a Kentucky horse track, I figured what better way to check it out than while fly fishing on a tributary of the Snake River? Hell, country's country.

The first swig - sheeit, the first swig tastes minty, sure. Maybe a bit like chewing gum. But it has bourbon in it. The bottle says so. There must be something good at the bottom. No doubt this is a fine beverage. I only need give it time.

I watch my buddy throw out a few casts. The fish are jumping today, ooh boy. Goddamned creek's teeming with finespotted cutthroat trout, hopping through the ripples looking for flies. Spring feeding frenzy. I take another swig. This shit's foul, there's no escaping it. It's worse than even the worst mint julep I've ever had. But there's a twisted satisfaction in such things. Like a Baltimore Prep who drives to a corner past 28th St. to get drugs. Or  a man who cheats on his wife with an ugly fat prostitute. The sordidness is part of the experience. It sets a man up to lose himself in the carnality of being a dirty beast.

My friend goes another cast and snags a trout. Fights it on in, grabs it in the net, a 20-inch cutty. Hot damn. I light a cheap cigar and wade upstream, 8-foot rod in hand. Feel the river go into your boots, Ryan. I do a few casts. Get it caught on a tree. Lose my fly. Wade back to the riverbank. Another swig. That's it. Toothpaste. This shit tastes like toothpaste. Can't even detect the bourbon in it until I stumble a little. Stare at nature. Embrace the julep. It's springtime, goddammit. This is the official drink of oldtime gay frivolity. Tie on another fly but not correctly. Lose it after a few casts. Back to shore. Another swig.

Just like a horse race. Ever spent a whole day trying to actually watch a horse race? Especially without having any money on it? The damn thing is tedious. I've been to a few Preaknesses in my day and they were only fun because of the infield carnival of bared breasts and booze. At least they were in high school, before those idiots at Pimlico outlawed BYOB and ruined the whole damn thing.

But and so, fortified with my liquid toothpaste and puffing deep on the stogey, new fly tied on, I wade back out. In spite of the snow-melt-stream and the 50-degree air my feet don't even feel cold. I walk into the middle of the water. My motion is more fluid. My aim better. And then, BOOM, steee-rike.

I'm puffing on my cigar, fighting the first sucker I've ever hooked on such a rod. With a fly you're pulling the line by hand, the way men did it thousands of years ago, fighting the goddman thing mano a mano.

So ends the day. The pre-mixed bottled julep, the lazy man's drink of spring and the Derby, tastes like goddamn liquid toothpaste. But when you're slugging it from the bottle on a nice backwoods spring day and thinking of old Kentucky gentlemen in sweat-stained suits and debutantes in hats that could make the British Royal Family applaud stepping over vomiting horse-fans, why, it just goes down smooth. And it certainly puts an extra sparkle on a man's first cutthroat trout.

So buy some Early Times Mint Julep if you want to get hammered off toothpaste in honor of the world's greatest horserace but have neither the time, the money, nor the patience to drink proper mint juleps. A perfect way to get properly soused for the races. The ETMJ is sanctioned by the event, made in Kentucky, has a special drawing of a horse and, hell, it's better than spending another Saturday drinking the same old beer.

Life's all about changing it up and getting a bit weird, after all.

Cheers.

- Ryan