"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Steve M. first called my attention back in February to this entertaining WSJ piece on Theodore Roosevelt's libel suit against a newspaper editor who accused him of drunkenness.
TR testified he rarely drank, save for the very occasional mint julep, including one at the St. Louis Country Club from which he'd taken a few sips. This led the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to teasingly accuse the Colonel of perjury, as no one could fail to drink all of a mint julep mixed by the country club's amiable barman Tom Bullock.
(Bullock's drink recipes were later collected into a book, The Ideal Bartender, with an introduction by one George Herbert Walker, and dedicated: "TO THOSE WHO ENJOY SNUG CLUB ROOMS, THAT THEY MAY LEARN THE ART OF PREPARING FOR THEMSELVES WHAT IS GOOD.")
TR ultimately won his case, settling for a retraction and waiving damages. Meantime, Roosevelt's old White House steward was prevailed upon for his own mint julep recipe, which the WSJ recorded thus:
T.R.'S LIBELOUS MINT JULEP
4 oz rye whiskey ¼ oz brandy fresh mint 1 sugar cube sliced pineapple, sliced banana, orange and cherries • Gently muddle a few leaves of mint with the sugar and a good splash of water in the bottom of a glass (or silver Julep cup, if you have one). Add brandy and whiskey and then fill the cup to the rim with pulverized ice. Stir until the outside of the glass is thick with frost. Pile the top of the drink high with mint and fruit. Bully!
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