The _julep_ is especially popular in the Southern States, and is said to have been introduced into England by Captain Marryatt. That romance-writing seaman in his work on _America_, says: “I must descant a little upon the _mint julep_, as it is, with the thermometer at 100°, one of the most delightful and insinuating potations that ever was invented, and may be drunk with equal satisfaction when the thermometer is as low as 70°. There are many varieties, such as those composed of _Claret_, _Madeira_, etc., but the ingredients of the real _mint julep_ are as follows. I learned how to make them, and succeeded pretty well.” Then follows the receipt:— “Put into a tumbler about a dozen sprigs of the tender shoots of mint, upon them put a spoonful of white sugar, and equal proportions of peach and common brandy so as to fill it up one-third, or perhaps a little less. Then take rasped or pounded ice and fill up the tumbler. Epicures rub the lips of the tumbler with a piece of fresh pine apple, and the tumbler itself is very often incrusted outside with stalactites of ice. As the ice melts, you drink.” “I once,” says the marine author of this receipt, of which the reader has _ipsissima verba_, “I once overheard two ladies talking in the next room to me, and one of them said, ‘Well, if I have a weakness for any one thing, it is for a _mint julep_!’” This weakness of the American lady was, in the opinion of the Metropolitan Hotel barman in New York, very amiable, and proved, not only her good taste, but her good sense. In _mulls_, which may be made of any kind of wine, the essential feature is the boiling. Sugar and spice, of which the nursery song tells us little girls are manufactured, are also invariably used in _mulls_. We give a rhymed receipt for mulled wine, not for the sake of the poetry, which is indifferent, but for that of the cookery, which is not bad. “First, my dear madam, you must take Nine eggs, which carefully you’ll break, Into a bowl you’ll drop the white, The yolks into another by it.” Here the poet was evidently hard pressed for a rhyme. “Let Betsy beat the whites with switch, Till they appear quite frothed and rich; Another hand the yolks must beat With sugar, which will make them sweet.” An ordinary effect of sugar. Poet probably hard pressed as before. “Three or four spoonfuls maybe’ll do, Though some perhaps would take but two. Into a skillet next you’ll pour A bottle of good wine, or more; Put half a pint of water, too, Or it may prove too strong for you.” This is personal, nay more, it might to some good people be offensive, as indicating deficiency of cerebral power or endurance.