Mojito Cocktail Recipe

The international drink of the exotic Cuba is Mojito, claimed to be invented in the 19th century. But it seems that the pirates actually invented this rum-based drink, by combining rum, mint, lime and sugar. The original combination of Mojito hasn’t quite changed since then, but many other Mojito cocktails were improved with other ingredients.

One of the most popular rum-based drinks ever, Mojito relates as a name to “mojo”, a Cuban lime seasoning, used in the kitchen when flavoring various dishes. And since lime has so many ways of being integrated in various recipes, this shouldn’t make us doubt it. Other theories relate to Mojito as a diminutive for “mojadito”, which in Spanish stands for “little wet”. Any linguistic origin the Mojito might have, its basic recipe is the same: it is made of white rum, lime, sugar, mint and sparkling water. But, as in most cases of classical recipes, other variations soon appeared.

Sometimes, a mojito’s original sweetness is cut by using angostura, a concentrated bitter made of water, alcohol, gentian root and vegetable root extract, usually used in many cocktails, but also when cooking. Sugar syrup is also used instead of the regular sugar, in order to better control the mojito’s sweetness, while the original white rum is sometimes substituted with other rums, with fruity aromas, or fruited vodka. The main fruit-flavors used when making alternative Mojito recipes are mandarin, mango or strawberry.

Other Mojito recipes use tequila instead of the rum, like the Mexican Mojito, or apple-flavored liqueur, like the Apple Mojito. The Virgin Mojito is a free-alcohol recipe.

The classic Mojito recipe includes as ingredients:

4.0cl White Rum

3.0cl fresh lime juice

2tsp sugar

3 sprigs of mint

soda water

Muddle the mint sprigs with the sugar and the lime juice, add rum and top with the soda water. Mojito must be garnished with sprigs of fresh mint.

Enjoyed for its refreshing qualities, Mojito has some rules of preparation which will make anyone an expert:

instead of using lime juice, experts suggest using slices of lime during the muddling process

if the Mojito is prepared with regular sugar, it should be dissolved into the lime juice first

sugar can be replaced with sugar cane juice, renowned for its natural sweetness

use fresh limes to juice, instead of using a simple lime juice, it will add some extra fresh flavor to the cocktail

mud the mints using a pestle to completely dissolve the sugar

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