Julep cocktails share a long history with The Kentucky Derby and, while this author isn't the world's biggest fan of horse racing, I do love a spring drink.

Apparently, thirsty punters go through around 120,000 of them on race days. That's a startling number given the main ingredient is bourbon and R, S and A aren't three letters often used by Americans in the South. But as you sip through an ice-cold glass of dark spirit and sugar syrup in a tall glass in the sun, you start to understand how easily they go down. 

So, to launch our Beer Cocktails series, Matt Went from Captain Melville was kind enough to provide a recipe fit for spring. Naturally, he turned straight to a spin on the Mint Julep, a Smash, which typically see citrus or other fruit added to bourbon, sugar syrup, mint and ice.   

While Matt runs the bar at one of Melbourne's oldest watering holes, he brings a forward-thinking approach to the cocktail list that often features craft beer as a key ingredient across several creative menu items.   

Having studied food science before working in beer, including a spell at the Fox Hotel in Collingwood, he later joined the team at renowned cocktail bar 1806. It was there he started to find ways to bring beer and cocktails together, feeling that the former was too often overlooked as an ingredient.

“First of all, I’m just passionate about beer,” Matt says. “I moved into the cocktail scene and nobody really saw beer as an ingredient. It’s what cocktail bartenders drink after work when they don’t want to think about cocktails.

“Wine is used as an ingredient in things like New York Sours, but not a single classic cocktail uses beer."

Captain Melville's cocktail menu has included gin infused with fresh hops, reductions made with black IPAs, and more straightforward twists on old favourites, such as the first new recipe Matt brought to the venue. 

“The first I did here was a riff on a Porn Star Martini with a passionfruit sour, where I used that instead of topping it with Prosecco,” Matt says. 

As with the recipe below, he’ll often modify certain beers to ensure they fit the overall flavour profile, or in the case of the syrup in the Simcoe Smash, make a hoppy beer more stable so you can store it for longer.

“You often do have to modify a little bit,” he says. “This one just uses reduction and adding sugar to make it shelf stable. Otherwise, I batch things so they can last.”

Which brings us to Simcoe Smash, a drink that features on the new cocktail menu launching at Captain Melville this week; it's named after one of the three hops that give KAIJU!’s Metamorphosis IPA its punch. 

Matt created the cocktail because he fancied using a couple of different ingredients in the new menu, then realised how well they complemented each other.

“I really wanted to use Jäger in this menu and I wanted to use a West Coast,” he says.

“I wasn’t planning on using them together but I realised by using West Coast as a base, it has that resiny dankness that you’re going to get from Jäger with its herbaceous notes.

“Then the malty base works quite well with the bourbon, so the West Coast marries those two ingredients together.”

Originally, he thought he'd end up with a Julep but, after having a taste, he realised the drink was missing something ... and that something was citrus to bring the flavours together. 

“The lime’s just to balance it a bit because I felt without lime it was a little bit too boozy,” he says, “and you didn’t really get all the flavours.” 

So, here's his recipe for Simcoe Smash. He singled it out from the as one that's relatively easy to make at home (which is why I decided to give it a go myself and, if I say so myself, was moderately successful in my endeavour). 

If you know a bar or brewery anywhere in Australia doing great things with beer / beer ingredients in cocktails, then let us know – we might feature them later in this series. 

Simcoe Smash

For the West Coast syrup

Ingredients:

• 1 cup West Coast IPA (Matt used KAIJU! Metamorphosis IPA, I used Hawkers West Coast IPA)
• 1/2 cup sugar

Method:

1. Put beer in a pot and bring to a simmer
2. Simmer until reduced to half original volume. Be careful during this step as the protein and oil in hops can make it bubble a lot
3. Add sugar and stir until the syrup is clear again
4. Store in an airtight container or bottle in the fridge for up to a week.

For the cocktail

Ingredients:

• 15ml West Coast beer syrup
• 30ml Jägermeister
• 30ml Evan Williams bourbon
• 30ml lime
• Fresh mint

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a glass and fill with crushed ice. Make sure you smack the mint before adding in order to help release the aromatics. 

Notes:

If you would like to prepare these in advance, then combine the syrup, Jägermeister and bourbon and store them in the freezer. This will remain shelf stable until needed.

About Will

Will Ziebell is a history graduate who knows more about The Wire than he does about beer. He was awarded the AIBA Best Media trophy for 2018; HBO have told him to please send his fan mail elsewhere. He can be found on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

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The beer(s) or moment(s) that turned you on to good beer:

Spending time living in the UK (and backpacking across Europe) when I was 21 certainly gave me a better understanding of the beer and different styles of the world. But I'd say it was a holiday to the High Country a little while later when lunch and a tasting paddle at Bridge Road Brewers created an obsession with Australian breweries and locally made beer.

You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?

• Boatrocker's Miss Pinky: It's a raspberry-packed Berliner Weisse that neither looks or tastes the way many people conceive of beer.

• Bad Shepherd Hazelnut Brown: A luscious mix of chocolate and hazelnut that can appeal to the sweet tooth within us all.

• Stone & Wood Pacific Ale: As the father of my oldest friend once said to me: "It's the perfect refreshing pint that smells like they've loaded it with the God's herb."

The last beer you enjoyed:

Garage Project's DFA while sitting at the bar at Miss Moses as the sounds of The Rolling Stone drifting in the background.

Three things that represent you:

• Bruce Springsteen
• Ken Burns
• The State Library of Victoria

Articles by Will