Mojitos, and the Twenty Minutes I Fight For
I am not a bartender. I want that on the record before anyone in the comments tells me I'm holding the muddler wrong. There is a whole genre of person online who will explain the history of Cuban rum to you for nine minutes, and I love that for them, but that is not what's happening on this channel.
Here's what's happening on this channel.
At some point every night the house goes quiet. Not clean. Not organized. Quiet. And I figured out a while ago that if I don't do something with that window, it's gone — I'll blink and it's 11pm and Marc and I have said maybe eleven words to each other, four of which were about the dishwasher.
So now we make a drink. It gives our hands something to do while we actually talk, and it turns out that's the trick. Sitting down across from your person with nothing to do is weirdly hard. Sitting down across from your person while one of you is butchering a lime is easy.
That's the whole show. There's no bit. I just needed a reason for us to look at each other for twenty minutes, and this one works.
The mojito was our first because it's five ingredients and it's genuinely difficult to ruin. Which I say with confidence, because we tried.
Things I have personally gotten wrong
The mint. Marc went after it like it owed him money. I want to be fair — I didn't know either. Turns out mint only needs a few gentle presses to give up the good stuff. Beat it and you get bitterness and little green flecks in everybody's teeth. I have brought this up more times than is strictly necessary and I will continue to.
The sugar. I dumped it into a glass full of ice and it just sat there like sand at the bottom of a pool. We drank two sad unsweetened mojitos and one straight glass of syrup before it clicked that the sugar has to dissolve in the lime juice first, before anything cold shows up.
That's the entire learning curve. Two mistakes. You can skip both of them now, you're welcome.
The Mojito
Makes: 1 (make two, obviously) Time: 5 minutes, or 15 if someone needs water
What you need
Amount Ingredient
2 oz White rum
1 oz Fresh lime juice (about 1 lime)
2 tsp Sugar, or 3/4 oz simple syrup
8–10 leaves Fresh mint, plus a sprig for the top
2–3 oz Club soda, cold
— Crushed ice
What you do
Mint, lime juice, and sugar into the glass. Press the mint against the side four or five times. The second you can smell it, stop. Stir until the sugar disappears.
Add the rum. Stir again.
Pack it full of crushed ice and stir until the outside of the glass frosts over.
Top with club soda, add a little more ice, one gentle stir. Don't go crazy or you'll push all the mint back to the bottom.
Slap the mint sprig against your palm and set it on top, near where you'll be drinking. It smells amazing and it's the only step that makes you look like you know what you're doing.
Notes from a very unqualified source
Rum: Any white rum. Ours is usually whatever survived the last cookout.
Mint: Spearmint. Peppermint makes it taste like you're brushing your teeth and I don't recommend it.
Lime: The one thing you cannot fake. Bottled lime juice tastes like a candle.
No crushed ice? Cubes in a dish towel, hit it with something heavy. Do this before bedtime, not after. Ask me how I know.
For a group: Mix it all except the soda ahead of time and keep it cold. Add the soda glass by glass, or you'll be handing out flat mojitos and doing that face where you pretend not to notice.
If it's bitter, you crushed the mint. If it's flat, the soda went in too early. If it's perfect, screenshot it, because I have never once made two good ones in a row.
But honestly, the drink is the excuse. You end up sitting down, across from someone you like, with something cold in your hand and no phone. That's the part I'm actually after.
Next week we're doing something with tequila and I have a bad feeling about it.
