In the Land of Cocktails

Notes on Chris…

Posted by Lu Brow on April 25th, 2011

The Mint Julep dates back to the very early 1800’s as a med­i­c­i­nal cock­tail. In 1820 it became a true cock­tail which spread from the South­ern states across the nation. It stayed pop­u­lar for about 50 years and then began to slowly fade away as 

other drinks became known.

My first taste of a cock­tail was the Mint Julep. Unfor­get­table to say the least. I was about 12 years old and attend­ing a party in honor of my Daddy’s brother Phil at my Aunt Myrtle’s home in Shreve­port It must have been in August as I remem­ber the heat being unbear­able. Her home hosted the best par­ties — full of fun, rel­a­tives, great food and peo­ple mis­be­hav­ing. My imme­di­ate fam­ily was dif­fer­ent from my other rel­a­tives — the only Baptist’s in the bunch. You know what that means. No drink­ing. So suf­fice it to say I got a lot of edu­ca­tion about life attend­ing those par­ties. The men would gather together out­side leav­ing all of the women in the cool house to social­ize. I wanted to be out­side — all of the men were drink­ing these mint drinks, laugh­ing, smok­ing and hav­ing fun. I slipped out­side to see my uncle and he asked me to take a taste of what was in his glass. I will remem­ber the taste the rest of my life. Sweet, minty and so strong it made my eyes water. He laughed and told me it was a Mint Julep — “What gen­tle­men drink when it’s hot out­side, baby” — All the men were laugh­ing because they knew my Daddy had stepped inside and would have had a stroke if he had known I had tasted alco­hol. To this day I remem­ber all the laugh­ing and smiles on those faces in that hot sum­mer sun.

Just think­ing about that reminds me of the time my Aunt Mil­dred started danc­ing on Christ­mas Eve and fell into the Christ­mas tree at Aunt Myrtle’s. She took the whole tree down and had to have knee surgery on Christ­mas Day!

But back to the Mint Julep…
I think every Bar­tender has a one drink that is their go-to drink. The one you always want, judge other Bartender’s by and rec­om­mend to guests uncer­tain of which cock­tail to drink. Mine is the Side­car. Chris McMillan’s is the Mint Julep. Order one with him and you will never have another any­where like the one he pre­pares for you. The rit­ual of his prepa­ra­tion is beau­ti­ful. His deep voice, sure hands and his pres­ence make it unfor­get­table. Where other than New Orleans would you meet some­one like him and hear the Bar­tender recite a poem while he pre­pares the cocktail?

It never fails to bring me to tears — the sheer beauty of the drink and the beauty of some­one like Chris. We are for­tu­nate to have him in this city. Make it a point to visit him and enjoy his drink and his company.

Lu