Does the muddler really shred the basil like this? I'm trying to determine if I made this wrong, or if you've modified the picture from the actual...

Don't worry about muddling...just enough to love the flavor. A little muddling goes a long ways.

The goal of muddling is to release essential oils from the target ingredient. It doesn't take much to accomplish the task. Overdoing it with an herb will introduce chlorophyll and other undesirable flavors to the drink -- not to mention the creation of little green bits that get stuck to your teeth. The referenced recipe and the photo above do not seem to correlate.

I wouldn't worry too much about the cosmetic appearance of the drink, as long as you're happy with the flavor. Generally, you don't want to absolutely pound the ingredients to be muddled with your muddler, but rather, press down on it and twist. As you can see from one of the recent Hotline posts regarding the Citrus-Thyme Macaroons by Dr. Babs, sometimes when the Food52 crew tests and photographs a recipe developed by a Food52 member, their results look different than the original. Not necessarily a problem, just a result of the testing, styling, and photography.