Proceeding with our declaration of Summer 2006 being the summer of Mint Juleps, Homemade Ice Cream, and Grilling, Mary Milan and I made our first batch of ice cream and mint juleps.

For the ice cream, we went with a basic super premium Vanilla recipe (Alton Brown’s 9, 8, 3, 2, 1 formulation) adding a vanilla bean in the scalding phase. Our product turned out tasting really good except that we had some trouble keeping ice crystal formation down to a minimum. It might be an issue with the consumer ice cream maker we used (thanks to Carmen Santa Rosa) or it might be that we churned for too long and therefore took too long before getting it back into freezer for it to set.

The ice crystals weren’t big enough to stop us from devouring it though.  Our 1 1/2 quart batch of vanilla bean is almost gone after 2 days.

Our first attempt at a classic southern mint julep didn’t fare as well. I don’t think it’s possible to make it in the mojito fashion (muddling mint and sugar at the bottom of the glass). I think, you have to go whole hog by making a mint and sugar solution and letting it steep for 24 hours before mixing with bourbon.

Maybe we are going about it all wrong. Any southerners out there have any secrets?

You can expect the official roll-out of Summer 2006 once we perfect our brand positioning.

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