Pinckney would start in best Julep fashion by putting a few mint leaves in the bottom of a glass with a lump of sugar and a splash of water. “With a silver crusher he would bruise the leaves with the greatest care.” Once the sugar was dissolved into a nice minty syrup, he would add, not the bourbon found in a Kentucky-style Julep, but a few drops of brandy and a “good ‘slug’ of rye whiskey of the finest kind procurable.”

Then Pinckney filled the glass to its rim with cracked ice. But the true measure of his artistry was just beginning. As is tra- ditional, into the top of the drink Pinckney would stick "a sprig of mint, so that the leaves dangled about temptingly." And then, piled high on the ice, Pinckney arrayed “a bounti- ful supply of cherries, sliced pineapple, banana and orange.” Carmen Miranda had nothing on the Colonel’s Juleps.

Back at the courthouse, Newett’s defense team had found only one witness prepared to say he had seen Roosevelt drunk — and he had to lam it to Canada to escape a bad- check rap. Newett knew when he was licked and read a statement in court: “I am forced to the conclusion that I was mistaken.” With bully magnanimity, Roosevelt waived his demand for damages, and the court awarded him exactly six cents.

The Washington Post, in one of the great headlines of the century, described the aftermath: “COLONEL QUAFFS MILK: Celebrates Libel Suit Victory With Bovine Bumpers.”