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| If you wish to create a Cuban rum Mojito don't go light on the fresh mint. Photography by Bruce Henderson, April 2015 |
Editor’s note: On a daily basis
from June 1 thru June 30, 2015 Pillar to Post online magazine is featuring
articles, photos and insights resulting from a recent group tour, an adventure
we dubbed: the April 23 Brigade’s Tour of Cuba 2015.
CUBA’S CONTRIBUTION TO SALOON
LORE
This classy highball is a Cuban
concoction. Legend has it that it was
invented in a sidestreet bar in Havana. The
Mojito has routinely been presented as a favorite drink of author Ernest
Hemingway. It has also often been said that Ernest Hemingway made the bar
called La Bodeguita del Medio famous as he became one of its regulars and wrote
"My mojito in La Bodeguita, My daiquiri in El Floridita."
This expression in English can be
read on the wall of the bar today, handwritten and signed in his name, although
Hemingway biographers have expressed doubts about such patronage and about the
author's taste for mojitos. Well, if it didn’t happen that way—it should have!
La
Bodeguita del Medio is also a damn fine restaurant albeit worn and torn by
decades of tourists, who insist in carving or scribbling notes on walls.
Our tour was greeted by a rum mojito
everywhere we stopped. It has become the
“La Bamba” of drinks for those wily norteamericanos while in the tropics.
Mojitos are indeed perfect for the
climate hot or cold because Cuba and Britain drink more mo’s than anywhere
else, according to London’s Daily Mail
newspaper.
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| No, we were not tempted to put our handwriting on the wall--we'll leave that to the amateurs |
CLASSIC MOJITO RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
3 sprigs
of fresh mint
2
teaspoons sugar
3
tablespoons lemon juice or 3 tablespoons lime juice, fresh
1 1⁄2
ounces light rum
club
soda, chilled
DIRECTIONS
--In a Tom
Collins glass, mush the mint with a fork to coat the inside.
--Add the
sugar and lime juice and stir thoroughly.
--Add
ice.
--Add rum
and stir.
--Finish
with the club soda.
--Add half
lime and more mint to taste.
Serves one.
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| Nice place, Ernie, but won't stand in line for a Mojito here, especially when there are cushy leather sofas and a jazz combo at the Hotel Nacional. |
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| You'll find La Bodeguita in Old Havana |
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