Summer is here, and everyone is ready for legendary summer nights. One of the most famous cocktails associated on our minds with summer is the mojito.
Let’s find out more about it!
- Mojito is a traditional Cuban highball.
- The cocktail often consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, soda water, and Spearmint.
- Its combination of sweetness, citrus, and herbaceous mint flavours is intended to complement the rum, and has made the mojito a popular summer drink.
- When preparing a mojito, fresh lime juice is added to sugar (or to simple syrup) and mint leaves.
- The mixture is then gently mashed with a muddler.
- The mint leaves should only be bruised to release the essential oils and should not be shredded.
- 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 leaves and lime wedges are used to garnish the glass.
- The mojito is one of the most famous rum-based highballs.
- There are several versions of the mojito
- This mixed drink is more than 500 years old.
- The history of this aged drink is a mystery, but most are sure it was concocted in the 1500s.
- Mojito is one of the oldest mixed drinks still consumed today.
- Sir Francis Drake was hailed across England as a hero, and was knighted by Elizabeth I after helping defeat the Spanish Armada.
- But to the Spanish, he was a ruthless pirate known as El Draque. It is said that a mojito-like drink was invented after Drake found himself near the city of Havana. Called El Draque, the cocktail had aguardiente (early rum), sugar, lime and mint.
- Originally, the drink was used for medicinal purposes, to help treat scurvy and dysentery. When the aguadiente was replaced with rum, the mojito was born.
- Mojo means a magic charm or talisman.
- It likely has roots in an African language.
- Some believe that the name was introduced by the slaves in Cuba who worked on sugar cane farms.
- This theory is often dismissed by historians who think this is more likely the origin of the word daiquiri.
- While spending time in Cuba, Ernest Hemingway often patronized La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, a bar that claimed to have invented the modern-day mojito. He picked up the drink and spread its popularity stateside.
- Pierce Brosnan’s Bond enjoys a mojito while chatting up Jinx (Halle Berry) in the 2002 movie Die Another Day. The scene led to a spike in popularity for the otherwise underappreciated drink.
- According to Google Trends, Poland Googles the term “mojito” more than any other country in the world.
- According to the The Mixed Drinks Report, which was done by consultancy firm CGA Strategy, found mojitos to be the most popular drink in Great Britain in 2014.
- Cocktail sales in general have risen 10 percent from 2012 to 2014 as more Brits are enjoying sweeter alcoholic beverages.
- The mojito recipe doesn’t have to be completely rigid. You can play around by adding new ingredients, like fresh fruit or flavored rum.
- Mojito can be “transformed” to a cupcake or an ice-cream flavor.
- Since mojitos are very popular in Mexican and Cuban restaurants, many people started to make their mojitos with tequila. While they are supposed to be made with rum, this is a fresh and fun take on the cocktail that many people love.
- Experts will tell you that normal ice cubes can melt and water down your mojito, which is why there are actually special mojito cubes that are made of water, sugar and lime juice that will help keep the flavor of the mojitos in tact.
- Market research company Nielsen surveyed 1000 persons between 18 and 60 years old to find out Mojito is also the most popular drink in French. The survey reported that every third consumer of French prefers it over any other cocktail drink.
