Mojito

Author Notes

Sure, since the mojito became the most popular drink ever (once again) it's also become popular for bartenders and self-described cocktail geeks to complain about it: It's pedestrian, it's the new cosmopolitan, it takes too long to make. But I remember a time when we were all just beginning to rediscover the mojito. And despite the fact that I've made literally thousands of them during the course of my career, I still have fond memories of those summers when we'd all gather in the kitchen while we waited for the grill to heat up and discovered the drink together, a new generation of mojito-lovers. It's an amazing drink when it's made right, and that's all you really need to know. —Jeffrey Morgenthaler

Test Kitchen Notes

"The Mojito took root in Cuba at a time when most rum was scarcely potable—fierce, funky and heavy with fusel oils and other noxiousness," writes Wayne Curtis for Liquor.com. "How to fix this? Well, if you were a Cuban farmer with a bottle of cheap rum and a long night ahead, you would have used whatever diversions were at hand to make it more palatable—a squeeze of lime, some sugar cane juice, a handful of mint. Then it would go down just fine."

There's nothing more refreshing than a homemade mojito cocktail with fresh mint, particularly during the warmer months. The mint in this recipe by Jeffrey Morgenthaler—the bar manager at Clyde Common and Pepe Le Moko in Portland, Oregon, and the author of The Bar Book and Drinking Distilled—comes in the form of a fresh mint simple syrup, which allows you to make a big batch of mojitos and avoid all that muddling for individual cocktails.

This magic syrup is smart for two reasons: First, by blanching the leaves in boiling water for just 15 seconds and shocking them in ice water, you stop the enzymatic browning that happens when fresh herbs come into contact with oxygen. This easy step ensures that your syrup doesn't turn brown over time. Second, the heat-treated fresh mint is blended with a cooled sugar and water mixture and strained, leaving you with a very minty syrup that can be be used all spring and summer long. You can use it in more than a mojito, too—try it in a mint julep, refreshing cucumber gimlet, or even just with seltzer and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Of course, if you're only making one mojito for yourself, you could just as well muddle 12 leaves in the bottom of the glass with a little sugar—that tastes great, too.

Once you've got the classic down, feel free to riff: Add fruit—like mango, watermelon or strawberries—to add a bit of extra sweetness, though you may want to adjust the amount of syrup you use to keep everything balanced. Or try switching up the citrus by swapping lime for something like grapefruit or lemon. Play around with the flavor combinations, and you might find your new favorite sip. —The Editors