Baltimoreans’ mint patches are springing to life, a harbinger of the mint julep season which is upon us with the 150th running Saturday of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, followed several weeks later by the 149th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

That being said, for many Marylanders the venerable Maryland Hunt Cup, which raced across the Worthington Valley Saturday, is not a mere dress rehearsal, but the actual observance of Opening Day and the happy marriage of crushed mint, simple syrup, rye or bourbon and LOTS of crushed ice stuffed into an ancestral silver julep cup from Kirk or Stieff, the once legendary Baltimore silver manufacturers.

While generals Grant and Lee may have buried the sword at Virginia’s Appomattox Court House in 1865, the War of the Juleps continues to this day as the great liquid battle between Maryland rye and Kentucky bourbon, and which should be employed in a julep.

And there are numerous codicils to the julep making process. Should the mint be muddled or allowed to ooze its fragrant juices? Should the ice be crushed, shaved or beaten in a bar rag into snow?

Irvin Cobb, the noted humorist, once wrote: “The true Southern mint julep … tastes like a bolt of concentrated lightning. The novice’s first idea is that he has been electrocuted or at least been hit on the head with a maul.”

The origins of the sainted drink date to the times of the Persians, who claim to have invented it.

The Crusaders said they brought it to Europe, and Col. Henry Jowles, born in London in 1690, insisted he brought the minty elixir to Calvert County, whose citizens take bows for making a notable and lasting addition to the nation’s drinking habits.

A mint julep pictured in 1980. (Staff)

But the question that begs the mind is how did the Persians obtain Maryland rye or Kentucky bourbon?

During antebellum days, brandy was often used as the liquor of choice in a julep, while today gin has made its way into the julep world creating something called the Major Bailey, which no traditional julep lover would countenance no matter how many winning tickets they had at Pimlico.

Former Baltimore Sun colleague and longtime friend, Rob Kasper, who wrote the “Happy Eater” column in the paper for years, spent a few years as a newspaper vagabond in Louisville, where he fell under the perpetual spell of the Kentucky bourbon julep.

His “receipt,” as they used to call it in parts of the South, calls for six to eight mint leaves which are crushed with a wooden muddler (it looks like a miniature Louisville Slugger bat) in the bottom of the julep cup or tall glass.

To this is added two tablespoons — not a typo — of powdered sugar and a dash of club soda. Muddle again and then pack the “cup” with crushed ice — not ice cubes — and then fill to the top, in his case, with good old Bluegrass State bourbon.

Decorate with a sprig of mint and a straw to which you can remove the flavorful mixture from the depths below.

Now, my take is a lump of sugar, a tablespoon of water which is reduced to a simple syrup and muddled with no less than four mint leaves.

Pack the vehicle with crushed ice and fill it to the rim with Maryland rye — while there are other excellent choices available, rye it must be.

Follow with Kasper’s decorating instructions and you have a perfect julep.

But back to Cobb, who wrote, “Any guy who’d put rye in a mint julep and crush the leaves, would put scorpions in a baby’s bed.”

After stopping at the long since demolished Baltimore’s Guy’s Hotel in 1842, Charles Dickens wrote a letter to The Sun: “I am truly obliged to you for the beautiful and delicious mint julep you have so kindly sent me. I have tasted it, but reserve further proceedings until the arrival of Washington Irving, whom I expect to dine with me, tete-a-tete, and who will help me drink to your health.”

Another noted 19th century traveler, Captain Maryat, remarked in his diary while touring the South on the mint julep: “The mint julep is with the thermometer at 100 degrees, one of the most delightful and insinuating potions that was ever invented. The julep may be drunk with equal satisfaction when the thermometer is as low as 70 degrees.”

An unsigned 1935 editorial in The Evening Sun, probably written by H.L. Mencken, described the julep this way: “When the julep is properly mixed by an expert, it is one of the most seductive of dull-care chasers. Instead of being wild and untamed, it is full of suave blandishments, like the caress of a lovely woman.”

Nicole Leonard, WHYY | KFF Health News (TNS)

PHILADELPHIA — On a narrow street lined with row houses and an auto body shop in the Kensington neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Marsella Elie climbs a home’s front steps and knocks hard on the door.

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A middle-aged man appears with a wary look on his face.

“Hello, sir, how are you doing today?” asked Elie, wearing a royal-blue jacket embroidered with the city government’s Liberty Bell logo. “My name is Marsella. I’m working with the city. You heard about the overdoses that are going around in the neighborhood, right?”

The man gives a cautious nod.

Elie gestures to the pamphlets she’s holding about drug overdoses and addiction treatment programs. She holds up a box of Narcan, a brand of naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose.

“What we’re trying to do is get this in everybody’s household. Have you ever heard of this before?” Elie asked before handing the man a tote bag filled with more pamphlets, fentanyl test strips, and the box of Narcan.

Elie and other part-time city workers and volunteers are part of a large-scale, citywide door-to-door campaign in Philadelphia that aims to equip homes with naloxone and other drug overdose prevention supplies.

City officials hope that this proactive approach will normalize naloxone as an everyday item in the medicine cabinet, and prevent people from dying of overdoses, especially Black residents.

In Philadelphia in 2022, a record 1,413 people died from drug overdoses, according to city data. Among Black residents, deaths were up 20% from the year before, with many happening in private homes.

“The best thing we can do to make these things more accessible is to just give them to people,” said Keli McLoyd, deputy director of the city’s Opioid Response Unit, speaking about the tote bag with naloxone and other supplies. “We’re not asking you if you’re using drugs. The goal here is really to build sort of a collective responsibility. As Black and brown folks, as we saw during the covid epidemic, nobody’s coming to save us. For us, this is a tool that we can use to save ourselves.”

An opioid crisis resource kit contains Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and information on how to get addiction treatment and other harm reduction resources. (Kimberly Paynter/KFF Health News/TNS)

The canvassing initiative aims to take prevention supplies directly to people who might not otherwise seek it out themselves, and to spread awareness about overdoses beyond Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s addiction epidemic. Canvassers plan to knock on more than 100,000 doors in Philadelphia’s “hot spots” — ZIP codes with escalating rates of opioid overdoses, many in minority communities.

Widening racial disparities in overdose deaths are among the long-term consequences of the war on drugs, McLoyd said. Policies from that national anti-drug campaign led to decades of aggressive police tactics, racial profiling, and lengthy prison sentences, disproportionately affecting people of color and their communities.

Research shows that Black Americans still account for a disproportionate number of drug arrests and child protective services.

“Because of that, it’s very clear why Black or brown people might be hesitant to raise their hand and say, ‘I’m a person who uses drugs, I need those resources,’” McLoyd said.

Other communities have distributed naloxone and other supplies, albeit on a smaller scale than Philadelphia.

What Philadelphia is doing could become a model for other densely populated places, said Daliah Heller, vice president of drug use initiatives at Vital Strategies, a public health organization working with local governments in seven states to address the opioid epidemic.

“There’s something intensely personal about a human engagement,” Heller said. “And somebody knocking at your door to talk about drug use and overdose risk and that there’s something that can be done, I think is really powerful.”

Mitchell Bormack (left) and Marsella Elie, canvassers for the community organization Philly Counts, use an app to determine where to hand out opioid crisis kits in North Philadelphia. The city of Philadelphia is trying to place harm reduction resources into homes in neighborhoods that have been deeply affected by the opioid crisis. (Kimberly Paynter/KFF Health News/TNS)

Over the years, naloxone has become more accessible than ever before, Heller pointed out. It can now be ordered online and through the mail, it’s available in specialized vending machines, and some drugstores now sell Narcan nasal spray over the counter.

But tens of thousands of Americans are still dying from opioid overdoses every year. That means prevention efforts and messaging about the crisis are still not reaching some people, Heller said. And to her, reaching people means meeting them where they are. “That means physically, that means in terms of what they know about something, what their perception is of something, and their beliefs,” she said. “We need to think like that when we think about naloxone distribution.”

The Philadelphia canvassing project is funded in part by the city’s share of settlement payouts from national lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. The city is set to receive about $200 million over roughly 18 years from settlements with AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson, and Johnson & Johnson.

The initiative is staffed by many of the same people who initially started canvassing as part of the 2020 census count.

Katherine Camacho, a North Philadelphia resident, eagerly accepted a box of Narcan from an opioid crisis outreach team. “I will carry this with me,” she says, adding that perhaps she could save a life. (Kimberly Paynter/KFF Health News/TNS)

Not everyone answers the door for the canvassers. Some aren’t home when they come around. In those cases, workers hang a flyer on the door handle that offers information about overdose risks and contacts for further resources. The teams of canvassers, often with language interpreters, later make a second sweep through a neighborhood to reach people they missed the first time.

On a recent Thursday, Philadelphia canvassers were knocking on doors in the Franklinville and Hunting Park neighborhoods. In this ZIP code, about 85 people died of drug overdoses in 2022, according to city data. That’s fewer than the 193 people who died of overdoses in Kensington in 2022, but much higher than the few deaths seen in the city’s most affluent neighborhoods.

The canvassers approached a resident, Katherine Camacho, on the sidewalk, as she came out of her garage. Camacho told the teams she was aware of the overdose problem in her community and then eagerly accepted a box of Narcan.

“I will carry this with me, because, like I said, sometimes you’re in the street driving somewhere and you could save a life,” Camacho told them. “And if you don’t have these things, it’s harder to do so, right?”

Camacho said she’s seen how the opioid crisis has caused suffering in her neighborhood and across the city. As for Philadelphia’s canvassing effort, she said she believes that “God is putting these people to help.”

As she headed into her house carrying the box of Narcan, Camacho said she wanted to do her part to help, too.

(KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.