- I'm back here heading with Ed Helms.
Give it up, y'all. Looking sharp in the hat.
The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, y'all.
And "what's the Derby without a cocktail?" is what I say.
I have my friends, two of the greatest mixologists
on the planet calling in from Nashville.
Let's everybody say hello to John and Lindsay Jaeger.
What's up?!
(cheering)
- What's up?
- So have you all been to the Kentucky Derby?
- So we have been there in spirit many, many times.
Just never in person, unfortunately, but we have
thrown many Derby parties because
give me a hot glue gun and a hat idea
and I am MacGyver basically.
- Your fascinator is amazing.
Jesse and I were talking about it.
What about you? Have you ever been?
- I have never been to the Kentucky Derby.
I've been to the Belmont stakes a few times, but yeah.
- I've never been either.
Well, I'm down for this part of it, seriously.
So we're making a Derby classic, right?
- That's right.
We are making the classic. It's the official cocktail
of the Derby.
What I love about this cocktail though, historically,
this is what we consider the first iconic American cocktail.
This comes to us around the time of
the Revolutionary War, in fact.
The word Julep is almost a thousand years old
and all that was
was a fancy term to say, get an herb, put it in sugar
put it in a little alcohol and use it as medicine.
So fast forward here into time.
And now we've got the Kentucky Derby mint Julep.
- I call that mama's medicine.
So I like what they're doing.
So what's the first step?
- So the first thing you're going to want to do
is take about seven to 10 mint leaves, a good handful.
Take them off the stem, throw them in your shaker tin.
Then you're going to add a half ounce of your simple syrup.
- Half ounce. So it's just like a splash.
- Then you're going to take your muddler.
Your muddler is like, it looks like a tiny baseball bat.
- That's right.
- And you're going to muddle it into the Wells express
until you can really smell the mint.
- Oh, I can smell the mint already.
- Ooh, yeah.
- To pulverize it, just give it a light tap.
Just express those oils.
- Okay. Express- (laughs)
Okay so are we supposed to put the bourbon in now?
When do we put the bourbon in?
- You're going to add in ice and three full ounces
of your Woodford reserve, the most important ingredient.
- So we drink three ounces and then add three ounces?
- (laughs) Yup.
- Is that the...
- If it happens, it happens. So that's the way to do it.
- Okay. So we put the, we put the Woodford in. Now what?
- So then you're going to get your ice--
- Oh, okay.
- Shake. Give it a real hard shake.
- Okay.
- Wonderful smell, a wonderful freshness.
It's another reason why this cocktail works so well.
- Agh! I really secured that thing.
Okay. Okay. Then we pour it over?
Okay. I like that this part looks like snow cone.
- That's right.
- Yeah. So you'll just strain it over fresh ice.
- Yes.
- And then you have lots of wonderful garnishes.
The most important one would be the mint
and Kelly, you know what to do with the mint.
You don't have to take the leaves off of this.
You can leave the whole stem and what do we do, Kelly?
You gotta smack it.
- Smack it?! What? Okay, I'm down.
I am loving- I don't know what the innuendo is,
but I'm down with it, I'm down.
- Bad mint, bad mint!
- Yeah. You stick it in there.
And then you can throw-
we have some dried orange wheels, some berries, strawberry.
You can really kind of add whatever you want.
I mean, we made ours look like
a total fruit salad over here.
- Mine is really pretty! How is yours?
- Adorable!
(laughs)
But man, is that good! Wow.
- I'm just gonna go back and see and make sure.
- Yeah. (chuckles) Let's double check, shall we?
- Let's double check.
All right, thank you so much, John and Lindsay
and everybody don't miss the Kentucky Derby this Saturday
at 2:30 Eastern on NBC.