The Kentucky Derby was initiated by Meriwether Lewis Clark, the grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition aiming to explore the 1803 Louisiana purchase. Clark developed the Louisville Jockey Club and started to build a racecourse in 1874 on land that he leased from his cousins John and Henry Churchill. Modeled on the English Classic, the Epsom Derby, the annual Kentucky Derby is the oldest consecutively held thoroughbred horse race in the United States. Together with the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and the Preakness make the coveted Triple Crown of the United State horse racing. The Kentucky Derby is held on the first Saturday in May. This year the Kentucky Derby celebrates its 150 year anniversary.

THE MINT JULEP
The Mint Julep was first referenced in 1784 as a medicinal concoction to cure an upset stomach. In the late 1700s it eventually transformed into a cocktail for the elites in the southern parts of the United States. This since crunched ice is a big part of the drink and it was usually served in a silver cup. Both of which were only found in the households of the upper class. The Mint Julep was introduced to Washington D.C. in 1850 by Henry Clay, a United State Senator from Kentucky, and it ended up being a favorite cocktail of several presidents. Theodore Roosevelt for instance got his cabinet members to play tennis with him by offering them Mint Juleps afterwords.

In 1938, the Julep was named the official drink of the Kentucky Derby. In a normal year at the Derby they serve up almost 120,000 Mint Juleps over the weekend. This requires an astonishing 10,000 bottles of Old Forester Mint Julep Ready-to-Serve Cocktail, 1,000 pounds of freshly harvested mint and 60,000 pounds of ice.

THE DESIGNER
The Slant glass was designed by Teruhiro Yanagihara in 2006 for Kimura Glass.