The three horsemen: cocktails inspired by the triple crown

It’s horse racing season! And we are in the final leg of the horse racing cycle known as the Triple Crown: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. The Kentucky Derby already has a winner (Golden Tempo), and so does the Preakness Stakes (Napoleon Solo), so now we wait for the Belmont Stakes on June 6. This year there can be no Triple Crown winner, but the odds are pretty good there will be at least a Double Crown winner. There are in fact two possible Double Crown winners, as opposed to only one possible winner for the Triple Crown, giving us two horses to root for instead of just one.

Clearly the best known of the three races is the Kentucky Derby, which is the first Saturday in May. Everybody who drinks has certainly heard of a mint julep, the Derby’s uber-famous signature cocktail. The Preakness Stakes, on the third Saturday in May, might be the next best-known race, and its official cocktail is the black-eyed Susan. And then there’s the Belmont Stakes, on the first or second Saturday in June, five weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks after the Preakness Stakes, and its official cocktail, the Belmont jewel.

The whole Triple Crown thing is really a lesson in marketing. The oldest race and longest race is the last one, the Belmont Stakes — first run in 1867, and 1.5 miles long. The next oldest is the Preakness Stakes — first run in 1873 — and is shorter than both the Belmont Stakes and Kentucky Derby. The Kentucky Derby is the newest race — first run in 1875 — and just barely longer than the Preakness Stakes at 1.25 miles but shorter than the Belmont Stakes.

The Preakness Stakes has changed lengths and tracks over the years, including this year’s change to Laurel Park in Laurel, Maryland, due to reconstruction work at its 100-year-old home at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. The Belmont Stakes has changed distances and tracks five times each. The Kentucky Derby has never changed tracks — always being held at Kentucky’s Churchill Downs — and it has changed distances only once, from 1.5 miles to its current 1.25 miles in 1896. Consistency seems to be the key, with both the race and the cocktails.

The Kentucky Derby is known for one drink and one drink only: the mint julep. The Preakness’ black-eyed Susan is the second official cocktail for the Preakness Stakes, the first being the appropriately named Preakness cocktail (bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters and Bénédictine). And the Belmont Stakes has had four different cocktails associated with it: the current “official” Belmont jewel, the former “official” Belmont breeze (whiskey, sherry, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, cranberry juice, 7UP and club soda), the white carnation (vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, heavy cream, egg white and soda water) and the Manhattan (whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters).

Here are recipes for the three most current “official” cocktails of the three races of the Triple Crown. Each has been simplified and/or modified for your consumption.

Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes (as seen in the NY Times) and an award-winning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart.net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com

Recipes

Mint Julep

Ingredients

2 ounces bourbon whiskey

1 ounce simple syrup

1 ounce fresh mint (about five sprigs, reserving at least one for garnish)

1 ounce soda water

Directions

Combine whiskey, simple syrup and mint in the bottom of a mixing glass. Add crushed ice and shake. Pour the entire contents into a serving glass, top with soda water and stir.

Notes: The original serving cup for a mint julep is a silver julep cup. Confusingly, Early Times is the “official” whiskey of the mint julep, but Early Times isn’t bourbon (aged in new barrels); it’s Kentucky whiskey (aged in used barrels). So much for tradition. In this recipe, we have substituted simple syrup for sugar and added soda water.

Fixes: Crushed ice is difficult to work with and creates more displacement in drinks than regular ice due to its size. If you want your julep to mix better, use regular ice cubes instead of crushed ice. If you want your mint julep to taste better, add a little lemon juice, making it more of a minted lemonade with whiskey. You can thank me later.

Black-Eyed Susan

Ingredients

1 ½ ounces vodka

1 ounce bourbon whiskey

½ ounce peach schnapps

2 ounces pineapple juice

2 ounces fresh-squeezed orange juice

½ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice

Sprig of mint

Orange slice

Directions

Combine all liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and then strain into a serving glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with mint and an orange slice.

Notes: Named for the Maryland state flower and the flowers used to blanket the winner of the race, the black-eyed Susan is certainly more refreshing than the previous Preakness cocktail, which was essentially a Manhattan.

Fixes: Peach schnapps is pretty passe in the world of cocktails these days. Two good substitutions are the addition of elderflower liqueur instead of the schnapps and replacing both the orange and lime juice with Meyer lemon juice (about 1 ounce total). Doing so will increase the tartness to sweet ratio rather pleasingly.

Belmont Jewel

Ingredients

1 ½ ounces bourbon whiskey

1 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice

½ ounce simple syrup

1 ounce sweetened pomegranate juice

1 stemmed maraschino cherry (Tillen Farms and 365 by Whole Foods Market both have no dyes and use real sugar)

Directions

Combine bourbon, lemon juice and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake to combine and then strain into a serving glass filled with fresh ice. Carefully add pomegranate juice; it should sink, creating a layered “sunrise” effect. Garnish with the cherry.

Notes: Finally, a drink I can get behind both as a bartender and as a consumer. Unlike famous mixologist Dale DeGroff’s eight-ingredient Belmont breeze — invented in 1997 — and the ridiculous white carnation that preceded the breeze, the Belmont jewel is easy to make — it’s really just lemonade, pomegranate juice and whiskey — and it’s also simply delicious. In fact, in my opinion, the Belmont jewel is by far the most delicious of the three and the clear Triple Crown cocktail winner for me.

Fixes: The only necessary fix is perhaps the substitution of Meyer lemon juice for regular lemon juice. This adds a wonderful orangey complexity to a fairly simple drink. Stemmed cherries make better visual garnishes; cherries on toothpicks look weird and are quite messy. Luckily for us, there are much better versions of pitted stemmed cherries available these days, both in terms of flavor and in quality. Yay progress and go sports!