welcome friends welcome back to
cocktails after dark where i
am exploring cocktail recipes from old
cocktail books uh mostly
pre-prohibition cocktail books
and today we're going to tackle the
mojito and this is a
cocktail that i have avoided making
because it is a very popular drink and
it has a very strong mythology around
both its creation and how it should be
made
so we're going to take it back today to
the beginning of
when this cocktail was actually called a
mojito
and the first time it's ever written
down is in the 1931
version of this cocktail book from
sloppy joe's
i have the 1933 version but the recipes
are exactly the same
and the recipe appears in this book both
as a rum drink
and a gin drink and i think that is
kind of telling as to the origins of
this cocktail
and so today i'm going to make one of
each both a rum
and a gin version of this cocktail and
they start out exactly the same
with super fine sugar in the bottom of a
glass
and then it asks for in the rum version
half of the juice of a lemon
and i think that is a mistranslation
from the spanish of limal which is
definitely a lime if you've been to cuba
ever
you'll know that they use lime in the
cocktail
now the rum version gets the juice of
half a lime
but the gin version gets the juice of a
whole lime
and i think the gin version is sort of a
nod to
who the customers were at sloppy joe's
bar
in the 1930s they were definitely
american tourists who might be a little
more accustomed to the flavor of gin
than rum and so for rum i'm going to use
this bacardi
um rum because sloppy joe does say
bacardi rum and in that time period
bacardi rum was still made in
cuba if you go to cuba today it's more
likely you're going to get old havana
or cube rum and in sloppy joe's later
books they have a house brand of rum
that they use and it is definitely an
aged dark rum so they stopped using the
light rum
in their cocktails and went to this much
darker rum
next in of course is mint
no indication of how much mint to use in
each one
i'm going to take a couple of sprigs of
mint and put them in
now what can be proven about the
creation of this cocktail is that in the
late 1920s
cocktails start to appear called the
moho and those
feature essentially the same ingredients
as the mojito
that first appears in the 1931 sloppy
joe's cocktail book
there's a much earlier story it tries to
link it
back to the 1500s and captain drake
a british sea captain and the story is
that you know drake
rocks up on the on the coast of cuba and
his crew is suffering
from scurvy and so the story is of
course
he shows up and the cubans come out and
say oh you know if you take some rum and
some
mint and lemon or lime um
it'll cure the scurvy and so this is a
wonderful fantastical story about this
drink called la drac or the drake
except there's no historical evidence to
support it and the first time that this
this drink shows up in the written
record
is in the 1830s and it doesn't really
link the drink to the mojito it doesn't
give a recipe it just makes reference to
some drink called the drake so we don't
really know what's
in it anyway it's a great story i'm sure
it sold a lot of rum
so many scholars think that this is more
generally linked to the julep and you've
got american tourists coming to cuba
asking for a mint julep which at that
time period would have been made
with gin and the bartenders
in cuba coming up with something that
used rum which was more
common in cuba but one of we ever let
reality get in the way of a good story
so we're going to finish this off with a
sprig of mint in each
and they also get the spent lime shell
just to give you a hint of lime on the
nose as you take your first sip
hey glenn hey friends
how do i drink it with the thing on top
um
i've actually had it where they've put a
high proof rum
and sugar in the top and then set it on
fire
so i'm not going to set it on fire i'm
not going to set it on fire ready for
that
so i give you the mojito um two ways
so yours is made with gin okay and this
one is made with a rum
got it cheers i'm gonna take that out
too yeah
mint on the nose
i like that i like the gym i find that
very light and refreshing and then
the mint adds to the big adds to the
botanicals of the gin
yeah to me that i like that i would
drink that on a beach
and and the rum is classic although i
prefer
i think a darker rum well i'm going to
give it a try there you go
get started again oh yeah different nose
completely with the gin
yeah that has a completely different
flavor still light still refreshing
still minty and not the same
i prefer the gin mojito i prefer the gin
but then i prefer gin over rum
so that's my bias well when we were
when we were in cuba they were pumping
these out of the bar like there was
no tomorrow i have never seen so many
people eat drink
so many mojitos um and they were using
uh havana club of course
and the the white havana club but i know
that
in the sloppy joes he goes to a 12 year
old
rum later or 15 year old mom i can't
remember off the top of my head
which would change the flavor again um
but i don't know i think from now on i'm
a gin mojito person yeah that's like a
a souped-up gin and tonic yeah that's
really nice and this is is
you know a more traditional mojito as we
know it but
i drink either so there you are birth of
the mojito
done two ways um we both prefer the gin
probably
um although you know
rum is the drink of cuba remember being
at the tropicana
that was a fun show and for every two
people sitting at a table you got a
bottle of rum
between two people and if you got two
cans of coke two little
cans of coke if you wanted to mix it
they were mostly pushing the rum the
coke was
second of all the coke was probably too
expensive
thanks for stopping by see you again
soon
you