Saturday, July 12, 2008

Mojito Madness


I feel it my duty to pass along my recent discovery. It is this:
1) Mint grows like a wild thing if left alone.
2) If it is to be tamed at all, you must find something to do with the mint.
3) We do not own any silver glasses and I think you cannot properly drink a mint julep without one. So, those are out.
4) Mojitos are curiously refreshing and delicious and no one cares what you drink them out of.

Mojito Recipe (if you have a better one, please pass along)

1) Take cup of choice. With a mortar and pestle, smoosh up some mint leaves (fresh, of course). Don't get really hung up on the number of leaves. By the time you have a few of these, you'll be going old school and just throwing a bunch of stuff in the glass anyway. If you like mint, start with about 6-8 leaves and add to taste. If you don't, go with four. Dump smooshed leaves in cup.

2) Put some powdered sugar on top of the mint smoosh and mix it up. Here's where you can ad lib a bit. The powdered sugar was making me a little crazy. It doesn't blend well and I really wished I had some simple syrup instead. Then, a friend pointed out that we could just add a bit of rasberry coffee syrup to it (not coffee flavored, but the kind they add to the coffee to make it slightly rasberry flavored) and probably sweeten it and make it extra delicious at the same time. She was right. So, go with the powdered sugar if you happen to be a real rules follower. Otherwise, do what works for you.

3) Throw some lime juice on top. Fresh limes if you can at all swing it. The lime juice from concentrate gets the job done alright, but nothing beats the fresh. Go with juice from about one lime. You can add later if you want to.

4) Add rum. You can figure this out by yourself.

5) Top with club soda. Toss a lime slice on the top as resort-wear.
Whoever invented this drink was a genius.

2 comments:

clemsongirlandthecoach said...

I was informed by my brother this week that you would use a "muddler" to crush mint for a mojito...

You can register for this tool at Williams-Sonoma...

I'm just saying.

Fishy Busyness said...

Really? I was convinced it was called a "smoosher!"