Warmer weather has finally arrived and people are starting to fire up the grills again and re-open the pools and head back onto the patio, so I thought I'd discuss the mojito, a classic warm weather cocktail.

 

 

The basic mojito is a going to contain rum, mint, lime, sugar and club soda. There are different recipes and methods and tweeks you can make to the recipe, but those are the key common elements that pretty much any drink that can still rightly be called a mojito will have.The Bacardi Rum company has a very standard recipe available here

http://www.bacardi.com/#/us/en-us/originalmojito/recipes?recipe=originalmojito

There are lots of great recipes out there in drink books and on the web at sites like

 

  Lets talk about how to make mojitos.  First lets start with the glassware and tools..

 

For glass ware, while there are special mojito glasses, tall slender cylindrical glasses, perfect taste results and lovely presentation can be achieved with other glasses,too.  The most commonly used glass is the Collins glass.  They're a little shorter and wider than a specialty mojito glass, but they still work and look great.   A high ball glass is bit shorter and wider than a Collins glass, but still makes a great choice.  If you don't have a mojito, Collins, or high ball glass, you can get by with any rocks glass.  

 

For a very traditional, classic, hand-crafted  mojito, you'll want to work with fresh ingredients and muddle the lime, mint, and sugar yourself. Muddling is simply putting the ingredients in the glass and smushing them around to release their juices and essential oils and mix their flavors together.  There's a specialty tool called a muddler that's made to be ideal for that,too.  Most of them look like a long pestle or a fat dowel rod with rounded ends.  If you have a muddler, by all means use it, but if you don't, don't worry about it.  You can effectively muddle your mojito with a lot of things.  I've found a wooden spoon works fairly well.  The handle end of some other bar tools can become great improvised muddlers,too.  Pretty much anything that is long and narrow enough to reach the bottom of the glass and wide enough to do some decent mashing ( about as wide at the bottom as a quarter coin give or take a little) is likely to work.  

 

You'll need rum, limes, mint leaves, sugar, and club soda. 

You'll cut your limes into wedges.  You won't need to do anything to your mint except separate the leaves from their stalks.  For sugar, some recipes use simple syrup (a liquid mix of one part sugar and one part water heated until it's a syrup), some use ordinary cane sugar (table sugar, like you would spoon into your coffee or use in  baking a batch of cookies), bar sugar works great (it's ground extra fine and dissolves super quickly), and I've even seen recipes that used powdered sugar or Splenda. 

 

For the rum, you'll want to use a light rum to produce a traditional mojito.  The most popular brand is Bacardi Light.  It's mid-priced and light flavored and good quality.  For a slightly cheaper rum, Cruzan Light rum is a favorite.  For a higher-end more flavorful light rum, Prichard's Crystal Rum is awesome.  You won't want to use a gold rum or dark rum for mojitos.  The richer warmer flavor is a bit too heavy for the drink.  You won't want to use a spiced rum,either.  If it's not clear like water, it's probably not right for a mojito.  I also recommend steering clear of any Rhum Agricoles,too, the slightly vegetal notes don't really pair right with the drink.

 

If you're making mojitos by the single glass, put your cut limes and mint leaves into the empty glass.  If you're making mojitos for a bigger group, put those ingredients into an empty pitcher or empty shaker.  If you're using regular granulated sugar (table sugar), you can go ahead and put your sugar in with the limes and mint now,too.  Then use your muddler (or whatever tool you have standing in for a muddler) to muddle the ingredients.  The muddling should NOT be a pounding motion.  You're not smashing them with an up and down motion, not tamping them down.  You're not trying to crush them into little pieces or mash them or press them flat.  You don't want to tear the mint leaves. You just want to press and bruise them. You're not trying to extract all the juice from the lime.  You're just trying to free some of the juices from the lime and more importantly some of the essential oils from the mint and the lime's skin. The motion that works best is sort of a pushing down twisting motion.  You push the ingredients into the bottom and sides of the glass (or pitcher or shaker) and sort of stir them around while pressing them fairly lightly against the glass and each other. 

 

If you've chosen to use bar sugar, powdered sugar, simple sugar, or sugar substitute instead of table sugar, you'll add it now.  Then you'll add a few cubes of ice.  Then pour in your rum.  Then fill the glass up the rest of the way with the club soda.  Then stir it up with a stir rod or a bar spoon, mixing it thoroughly and dissolving the remaining solid sugar crystals.  If you're making it in a pitcher or shaker, pour it into glasses and then garnish them with a mint leaf or two and a slice of lime (circle shaped).  If you're making them by the individual glass, you can just garnish and serve them in the same glass you mixed them in.  

 

There are lots of varietions on the traditional recipe and traditional method that can still produce a delicious mojito with a traditional taste profile.  You can use already squeezed lime juice in place of the limes.  You can substitute sweetened bar lime juice (like Rose's Lime) for both the lime juice and the sugar.  There are lots of brands out there that bottle ready made mojito mix , so all that you'll need to do is add the rum and a splash of soda.  

 

If you're looking to mix up a mojito with a new twist, there are plenty of tantalizing variations on the classic recipe.   One tiny variation that  can make a big impact is to still use your favorite traditional mojito recipe, but use a flavored rum in place of the regular light rum.  Flavors like lime, passion fruit, orange, mango and berry are popular for that.   Another interesting twist is to use a sparkling wine in place of the club soda in the traditional recipe.  Adding fresh fruit or fruit juices is another popular option.  Raspberries, cranberry juice, and mango puree are some of the most common choices. I've even heard rave reviews of using fresh watermelon.