Julep/Jallab

When you drink your mint julep, you should know that "julep" comes from the Arabic "jallâb," a delicious drink made from dates, carob, grape molasses and rosewater, very popular in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. When I lived in Beirut it was my fave cold drink to buy from street vendors, who usually topped it with raisins and pine nuts or almonds. I recently found some jallab concentrate in a store in my home town of Fayetteville and had my son Evan, a bartender, taste it. He's the one who did the research on the etymology of the word julep. (I should add that the Arabic jallab comes from the Persian gulab ("rosewater"), but it passed into Latin from Arabic and hence to Old French and then to English.)