Kentucky Derby Punch

Bourbon, mint, and sugar in a large punch — scaling the Mint Julep that Churchill Downs has served officially since 1938 for Derby Day home gatherings and parties.

The Kentucky Derby is the oldest continuously held major thoroughbred horse race in the United States, run at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May in Louisville, Kentucky without interruption since its inaugural running on May 17, 1875. The race was founded by Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., who had visited the Epsom Derby and the Grand Prix de Paris in 1872 and returned to Louisville determined to create an equivalent American institution. Churchill Downs, named for the Churchill family on whose property it was built, became not only a racing venue but the center of an annual social ritual that has come to define Louisville and Kentucky's identity on the national stage. The Mint Julep — bourbon, fresh mint, sugar, and crushed ice in a silver or pewter cup — has been the official drink of the Kentucky Derby since 1938, and Churchill Downs serves more than 120,000 of them each Derby weekend. The association between bourbon and the Derby is so complete that any bourbon cocktail made for Derby Day gatherings participates in this tradition. Derby Day parties — from formal hospitality suites at Churchill Downs to backyard gatherings across the country — have produced a genre of large-format bourbon punches designed to be prepared ahead of service and served to groups in the spirit of the event's communal, festive character.