2 teaspoons white cane sugar (or 20 ml ofsugar syrup)
Soda water
Preparation
Mix mint sprigs with sugar and lime juice. Add splash of soda water and fill the glass with ice. Pour the rum and top with soda water. Light stir to involve all ingredients.
When preparing a mojito, fresh lime juice is added to sugar (or tosimple syrup) and mint leaves. The mixture is then gently mashed with amuddler. The mint leaves should only be bruised to release the essential oils and should not be shredded.[5] Then rum is added and the mixture is briefly stirred to dissolve the sugar and to lift the mint leaves up from the bottom for better presentation. Finally, the drink is topped with crushed ice and sparkling soda water. Mint sprigs or lime wedges are used to garnish the glass.
In Cuba, the mint used to make mojito is most commonlyMentha × villosa (calledyerba buena orhierbabuena in Cuba) which has a light minty-citrus aroma, but outside of Cubaspearmint, which has a stronger mint aroma, is often used.[6]
Havana,Cuba, is the birthplace of the mojito,[7][8][9][10][11] although its exact origin is a subject of debate. It was known that the native people had remedies for various tropical illnesses, so a small boarding party went ashore on Cuba and came back with ingredients for an effective medicine. The ingredients wereaguardiente de caña (translated as "burning water", a crude form ofrum made from sugar cane) mixed with local tropical ingredients: lime, sugarcane juice, and mint.[12] Lime juice on its own would have significantly prevented scurvy and dysentery,[13][14][11] andtafia/rum was soon added as it became widely available to the British (ca. 1650). Mint, lime and sugar were also helpful in hiding the harsh taste of this spirit. Another theory is that it was invented bySir Francis Drake. The "El Draque" cocktail was prepared with brandy.[11] While this drink was not called a Mojito at this time, it was the original combination of these ingredients.[4]
There are several theories behind the origin of the nameMojito: one such theory holds that name relates tomojo, a Cuban seasoning made from lime and used to flavor dishes.[4][15] Another theory is that the name Mojito is simply a derivative ofmojadito (Spanish for "lightly wet"), the diminutive ofmojado ("wet").[16]
The mojito has routinely been presented as a favorite drink of authorErnest Hemingway.[17] It has also often been said that Hemingway made the bar calledLa Bodeguita del Medio famous when he became one of its regulars and wrote "My Mojito in La Bodeguita, MyDaiquiri inEl Floridita" on a wall of the bar. This epigraph, handwritten and signed in his name,[18] persists despite doubts expressed by Hemingway biographers about such patronage and the author's taste for mojitos.[19] La Bodeguita del Medio is better known for its food than its drink.[20][21]
A survey by an international market research company found that in 2016 the mojito was the most popular cocktail in Britain and France.[22]
It is said that some hotels inHavana usepowdered sugar with the mint leaves rather than granulated sugar as the former dissolves more readily, while many establishments usesimple syrup instead.[23] The "rose mojito", which is a mojito variation containing the rose-flavored spirit,Lanique, was first created at the Albert's Schloss bar in Manchester, England.[24] A mojito without alcohol is called a "virgin mojito" or "nojito".[25] TheCojito addscoconut flavor, often through the use ofcoconut-flavored rum.[26] A dirty mojito calls for gold rum instead of white rum, and raw sugar or demerara sugar.[27] Demerara is a light brown, partially refined, sugar produced from the first crystallization during processing cane juice into sugar crystals. Adding this to a mojito gives it a caramel-like flavor.[28] A dark rum mojito simply calls for a dark rum to be used instead of white.[27]
In Mexico,tequila brandDon Julio offers the "mojito blanco" by simply replacing rum with tequila.[29]
In Peru, there are mojito variations that are made by adding fruits like grapefruit, called "mojito de toronja",[30] or with passionfruit, called "mojito de maracuyá".[31] Many restaurants serve them,[32][33][better source needed] and these added ingredients enhance the cocktail and its original flavor. Some other fruits are found in other mojito recipes: pears, raspberries, and oranges.[27] Purees of such fruits may also be used instead of the whole fruit itself. The strawberry mojito includes muddled strawberries;[34] a further departure along these lines substitutes gin for the light rum and lemon juice for lime juice, and adds tonic.[35]
^Colleen Graham; About.com Guide (11 June 2011)."About.com Mojito". Cocktails. about.com. Archived fromthe original on 8 August 2011. Retrieved1 September 2011.
^Mojito is derived from the Spanishmojo sauce, which often contains lime juice (see"mojito" at Dictionary.comArchived 22 October 2007 at theWayback Machine, citing theAmerican Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2006, Houghton Mifflin), whilemojo is derived from the Spanish verbmojar, meaning "to make wet" (seedefinition 3 of "mojo" at Dictionary.comArchived 23 October 2007 at theWayback Machine, citing Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7), 2003–2007, Lexico Publishing Group, LLC)
^W. Stock on 8 August 2010 (19 February 2011)."Die ewige Bodeguita". Stockpress.de.Archived from the original on 4 June 2023. Retrieved1 September 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Greene, Philip (2012).To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion. Perigee Trade. p. 168.ISBN978-0399537646.
