If you want to order a mint julep at the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, you'll have many choices on the price you have to pay.

There's your typical $11 mint julep served in a souvenir cup offered to the frugal drinker. Churchill Downs estimates that 120,000 mint juleps are served every year on race weekend.

There's also 89 high-roller mint juleps being offered. There's 79 of them for sale for $1,000 and 10 more for $2,000. These high roller mint juleps are not your oridinary drinks.

Woodford Reserve, the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby, is again offering these special edition mint juleps. This is the ninth year they have offered the drinks.

The mint juleps will come in a special cup with engravings. On the cup there's a gold-plated medallion of a horse and a garland of roses. 

Thankfully, this hefty price comes with some benefits. Proceeds benefit the Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Center for former race horses. Woodford Reserve says that more than $354,000 has been raised through the program.

Chris Morris, master distiller for Woodford Reserve and historian of American spirits, says racing and whiskey have been in Kentucky since the early 1770s.

That explains the whiskey, but what about the mint and the sugar?

Morris explains that back in Colonial times drinks were viewed as medicinal and called "smashers" or "bracers."

"In Virginia, they were made with rum and brandy. So our Virginia ancestors came into Kentucky, and of course there was no brandy here. There was no rum here," says Morris. "They were too far from the sugar cane fields of the Caribbean, and they did not have fruit orchards. But they had corn, and of that led to the development of bourbon ... and that led to the mint julep as we know it today." 

Besides the fancy cup, you'll get with your pricey mint julep, the contents inside are actually quite plentiful.

"We have candied rose petals, actual rose petals that we've soaked in sugar water," says Morris. "So we're going to put some rose petals in the cup, a little bit of mint, muddle that together. The ice we're using has been made from rose water. ... It has the mint, but now it has the rose hint to it."