At the Kentucky Derby this weekend, there are only two certainties: thoroughbreds will run for the roses, and thousands standing on two feet will sip on bourbon smashed with mint. Jockeys and juleps are intrinsically linked in the culture of Churchill Downs. The classic Mint Julep has been the official cocktail of the Kentucky Derby for more than a century, and each year, the demand calls for 1,000 pounds of fresh mint for muddling.

But if you can’t make it to the track to see Orb, Normandy Invasion or Goldencents vie for the prize, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy the other half of the derby tradition. To help us better understand this Kentucky treasure, the cocktail crafters at downtown Louisville’s Proof on Main shared three different versions to try this weekend.

Proof On Main Mint Julep — The Classic

Mint leaves (enough so the glass is half full)
1 oz simple syrup
2 oz bourbon
Crushed ice to fill glass

In a rocks glass, lightly press on mint with a muddler or back of a spoon. Add simple syrup. Pack glass with crushed ice. Pour bourbon over ice. Garnish with extra mint sprig.

For The Birds

2 oz Pure Kentucky XO
1/4 oz Smith and Cross Rum
3/4oz simple syrup
1/2 pip Bitterman’s Mole Bitters

Muddle Mint with ¼ oz of simple syrup. Combine remaining ingredients with ice and stir. Double strain into coupe glass. Garnish with fresh mint sprig.

Julep Served “Up”

2 oz Larceny
1/2 oz simple syrup
Handful of mint
Splash of water

Combine all ingredients in tin and shake with ice. Strain into martini or coupe glass. Garnish with fresh mint sprig.

Drinkers who love single-malt Scotch whisky, but who also prefer to support an American product like bourbon, will soon get to have the best of both worlds. And in the meantime, we can enjoy one of the most unique spirits on the market.

The Virginia Distillery Co. in Lovingston is in the process of building a single-malt whisky distillery complete with Scottish-made copper pot stills. The product coming out won’t be Scotch, primarily because it’s not being produced in Scotland, but the difference will be more than technical. Single malts reflect the land from which they come and the largely unvarying climate of Scotland is a far cry from Virginia, where extreme fluctuations from season to season will speed the maturation process.

“It will have flavor notes influenced by the terroir of Virginia,” says the distillery’s Pat Jones-McCray.

Pat says they hope to get their Virginia Single Malt in barrels later this year, where it will age for three years. In the meantime, the distillery is importing an aged, vatted Highland malt from Scotland. But rather than slapping their label on a product they didn’t make, Virginia Distillery Co. has decided to do something truly unique and finish the whisky in French oak wine barrels used to age Virginia port-style wine at a vineyard a few miles from the distillery.

“We felt we wanted to do something with integrity that reflected the character of Central Virginia, where we live,” Pat says. “We wanted to add some artisanry to the process.”

The few months spent in those barrels results in a copper color Scotch with acacia honey and ginger notes, and gives hints of chocolate, raspberry and tobacco that will appeal to the bourbon drinker. It’s called Virginia Highland Malt Whisky, and it can be currently found in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Delaware and online here (if your state allows).

“We are really aiming for authenticity in our Virginia Highland Malt and in the ones coming soon that we will be making,” Pat says. “Our aim is to produce high-quality, single-malt whisky made in America and with special appeal for people who care about the origins and the artisanship of their food and drink.”

It’s no secret that Southerners like our tea sugary, sun-brewed and filled with bleeding black tea bags. But Joel and Leah Larabell, the husband and wife owners of Nashville’s High Garden, think that experience is only the beginning.

“It’s the world’s oldest beverage,” Joel says, sipping on a cup of Green Oolong, his personal favorite. “Besides water, this is what the world drinks, and there’s something to that.”

Two months ago, the duo opened the doors of their small, 192-square-foot tea emporium, the first of its kind in Nashville – or anywhere in the United States, according to their research. The store’s mustard yellow walls are lined top to bottom with glass canisters full of handpicked tea leaves on the right and organic herbs on the left. Containers are labeled with Jasmine Pearls, Hyssop, Coltsfoot, among others, and include specific instructions for water temperature and steeping time for each high-quality ingredient.

The towering collection of herbs and tea leaves smells earthy, botanic and savory. When Joel grabs the “Milk Oolong” container and spins off its aluminum top, the room fills with the aroma of heavy cream. It’s been popular in the shop’s short two-month lifespan, and it’s easy to smell why. “They steam milk and water, and the steam penetrates the leaves, and that’s where you get the flavor,” Joel says.

We’ve forgotten the tastes and smells of real tea because commercial tea plantations don’t choose leaves based on quality. Instead, they send machines barreling down rows of tea bushes and cut any leaf available. “You get every leaf, stem and twig thrown in,” he says. “It’s the poorest quality, with the least amount of flavor – so much so that it usually turns into a flavored tea. They add stuff to it to cover it up so you can barely taste any actual tea. I thought that was a shame, so we started this.”

While Joel is the resident tea expert, his wife Leah, a self-proclaimed “mountain girl,” is a connoisseur of natural herbs. One of Leah’s most popular herbal blends is called “Hangover,” and though they don’t claim to be doctors, Joel and Leah both agree it’s a decent cure. In its ingredient list you’ll find Green Yerba Mate, chamomile, chrysanthemum flower, white willow bark, rosemary, ginger root, kudzu root and lemon peel – nothing processed, everything organic. Each concoction is hand-mixed in silver bowls, then hand-filled in tea bags that are individually stapled and labeled with exact steeping time and temperature.

The entire enterprise is a lesson in slowing down. “Making tea is more of a process,” Joel says. “You don’t just turn on the coffee maker. You get your water just right, you steep it for the perfect amount of time that you like, and you sit down and enjoy it.”

So whether you go for one cup, a few bags to take on the road, or a host of bulk ingredients to experiment on your own – High Garden proves that tea may be worth a second look.

Five years ago, Brooks Reitz was a gin man living in the heart of bourbon country. Managing a restaurant in Kentucky with an impressive bar, cocktail culture began to percolate right under his nose. As carefully crafted, small-batch gins trickled into the market, he noticed that no mixers were coming with them.

“To me, a gin and tonic is such an English drink, and at the same time, such an American one,” begins Brooks. “There is so much romance to it.” Inspired, he began to experiment in the kitchen, after a few months ultimately producing a tonic recipe he was happy with. “Now you see house-made tonic a bit more,” he says, “but I’m fortunate that I was one of the first doing it, especially in a syrup format. It became a key part of the beverage service of the restaurant, but it didn’t even cross my mind to sell it at the time.”

Not long down the road, Brooks relocated to Charleston, where he took up at Mike Lata’s renowned eatery FIG as general manager. “We started serving the tonic at FIG, and people were loving it. I started getting a lot of inquiries; ‘Do you sell this?’ So I just started putting it in a quart container for people to take home. One day, one of my friends asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about bottling this?’ At first I thought no way, I was too busy, but he’s the reason that the light bulb went off. I really started to think about it. After that, the rest, as they say, is history.”

The most glaring distinction between Jack Rudy Tonic and what you pick up at the grocery store is that it is a concentrate. While shoppers are conditioned to expect a bubbly liquid, Brooks’s concoction is a syrup. “It gives it versatility for so many applications – particularly in shaken drinks,” he says. “We take a sticky-sweet tonic that isn’t very complex and rework it into an interesting cordial. We want to take things back to the way people drank in the forties, to drink like our grandparents.”

Named for Brooks’s great-grandfather, Jack Rudy’s name is really William. “They called him Jack because his ears were so big,” Brooks says fondly. “Short for jackass.”  The company is still run out of Brooks’s dining room. Hailing from a long line of Southerners “who are all pretty big drinkers,” and inspired by the idea of reworking old-fashioned cocktails for the modern climate, Brooks is taking his philosophy and applying it to other cordials. “Take a grenadine, which we’re launching soon, and instead of making it this pink mix of ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, we bring it back to its origin; made with orange peel and rose water. Do that, and you get something bright and different.”

At 28 years old, Brooks has every intention of continuing to grow his company in the direction he feels his generation is moving. “People are becoming more aware of what they are buying and eating. They are thinking harder about its integrity, and they want things that are responsibly produced. People my age…they have a conscious appreciation for art, design and how things are made. I feel like Jack Rudy is a part of that microcosm. I’m proud of that.”

That new bourbon rapidly earning a spot on the shelf at your favorite Nashville bars and restaurants doesn’t just have a colorful, local name. Belle Meade Bourbon also has a rich heritage and an exquisite taste.

Brothers Andy and Charlie Nelson have resurrected their great-great-great-grandfather’s Middle Tennessee business, Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery, which in the 1800s spread the term “Tennessee Whiskey” throughout the United States and Europe long before Jack Daniel’s was a household name. In 1885, Charles Nelson sold 380,000 gallons of whiskey at a time when Jack Daniel’s production capacity was limited to 23,000 gallons.

According to the brothers, who have amassed a treasure trove of Charles Nelson’s business documents, correspondence, original bottles and labels, and other memorabilia, their great-great-great-grandfather believed a man should select his calling and stick to it. (“Success must be achieved by concentration and close application,” he is quoted as saying.) And in the discovery and resurrection of their family’s whiskey-producing heritage, Andy says he’s never loved work more in his life.

“The history of the company and our family is the cornerstone and foundation of what we’re doing, and it’s why we’re doing it. If it didn’t exist before, we wouldn’t be doing it now,” Andy says. “We’re trying to make something as authentic and close to the original as possible. I’m so much more passionate about this than I have been about anything.”

If you’ve ever found yourself standing in the liquor store unable to decide between a bottle of bourbon or rye, Belle Meade Bourbon is a must-try. One of Charles Nelson’s original brands, the bourbon, aged six to eight years, has a high-rye mash bill that sets it apart from other bourbons.

“It’s 30 percent rye. Most bourbons are 10-12 percent rye,” Andy says. “I think balance is one of its greatest assets. It’s got that rye spiciness to it, but it also has sweetness and is very smooth.”

Take a sip, and the first thing you’ll notice is the rye spice on the tip of your tongue that transitions mid-palette to a long, smooth finish. At 90.4 proof, Belle Meade Bourbon pleasantly lacks the alcohol burn going down the throat that even some weaker whiskies have.

While their first offering, Belle Meade Bourbon will not be Andy and Charlie’s flagship brand. That will be a 100-percent authentic recreation of Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey, but the brothers want to wait until their Marathon Village distillery is fully operational so they won’t have to rely on contract distillers.

“We have the full recipe for that, and we want to make it grain to glass,” Andy says.

Belle Meade Bourbon is currently available at bars, restaurants and liquor stores in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Maryland and Washington, D.C.