Dapple Grey
Tartan of the Day
Jul 11
Click the tartan to view its entry in The Scottish Registers of Tartans which includes registration details, restrictions, and registrant information.
Unregistered tartans may link to one of the web's online design environments for similar information.
For any questions about reproduction of designs or weaving of these tartans, please contact the registrant directly or via this website.
Mint Julep Day
"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."
~ James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
This humorous quote from Boswell's book The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785), recounts the 1773 journey Boswell taken through the Scottish Highlands and islands with the famed English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, known for his wit, strong opinions, and suspicion of uncooked vegetables. We respectfully disagree with Dr. Johnson!
On a sweltering summer day, few things evoke a sense of cool, crisp refreshment like the subtle crunch of a cucumber sandwich or the icy sting of a mint julep, ideally served with a twist of cucumber for an extra touch of garden freshness. Though Dr. Johnson’s biographer Boswell may have had other ideas about tea accompaniments, many find cucumber's soothing qualities and imagery the perfect counterpoint to heat.
And why not a visually refreshing tartan to cool the eye of the onlooker! This seasonal and verdant tartan, with its spring and summery cool green tones and fresh white accents, was inspired by the visual essence of a classic mint julep garnished with a cool cucumber!
The mint julep—an American classic combining bourbon, simple syrup, shaved ice, and muddled mint—has become synonymous with the Kentucky Derby, famously served at Churchill Downs since the race's beginnings in 1875. This storied event, dubbed “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” marks the start of the Triple Crown each May and has helped elevate the mint julep from Southern staple to national symbol of springtime indulgence. Over the years, creative twists have emerged, and the addition of cucumber has become a favorite—bringing not only flavor but a cooling clarity that mirrors the sensation of shade on a hot afternoon. 💚 💛 🤍 💚 🥒 🥒 🥒 🧊 🧊 🧊 🥃
Possibly one of the only vegetable tartans, this beautifully shaded green tartan, designed by Carol A.L. Martin, gives visual cooling relief on a hot summer's day.
The meaning of the phrase "cool as a cucumber" does not really refer to its temperature (although the insides of a cucumber are substantially cooler than ambient temperature). The phrase actually means "to remain calm, assured and composed." The phrase was first recorded in a poem by the British poet John Gay 'New Song on New Similes' in 1732: "Cool as a cucumber could see the rest of womankind".
Cucumbers have been the subject of convoluted science, especially during the years of interest and inventions in longitude science, particularly in the 18th century.
Jonathan Swift's in his Gulliver's Travels (1726) satirized this trend when Gulliver meets a ragged dirty philosopher who 'had been eight Years on a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement Summers.'
Cucumbers also appear in relation to longitude in a satirical poem from 1732, A hymn to the Chair: Or, lucubrations, serious and comical, on the use of Chairs, Benches, Forms, Joint-Stools, Three-Legged Stools, and Ducking-Stools. Among the chairs which the author discusses, he suggests that:
'Had we of Archimedes's Lumber,
Enough to make a Chair for Slumber,
We'd find by Lines in a Cucumber
Longitude.'
For a discussion of one of today's more fanciful "scientific" beliefs, that cats are terrified of cucumbers, click the mint julep!