My Grown Up Mojito

I began making mojitos as my go to summer drink a few years ago. I worked on my proportions over the course of three summers and was very pleased with what I'd arrived at.

Mojito Spritzer
1/3 cup white rum
1 cup carbonated water (I use San Pellegrino)
8-12 spearmint leaves
1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 Tbsps syrup (1 part white sugar, 1 part water)
3-4 ice cubes
Pour the rum in a pint glass. Put in the mint leaves. Gently muddle the leaves. Add the carbonated water, lime juice, syrup and ice. Gently stir the drink.

Muddling Note: Use a nice muddler. Mine is made of cherry wood and has a long handle. I oil it to seal it regularly. Be gentle with the mint. Press and maybe make a small rocking motion... or maybe a small twist. You're not trying to blend the mint. You're trying to release the oils. If you don't have a muddler, you can try using the handle of a wooden spoon.

Turns out that this was a gateway recipe. It was sweet, light, and very drinkable. But to be honest, it was like a soda and while it was ultimately a good thirst quencher, it lacked enough depth to keep me from wandering. Or perhaps my palate matured (or at least changed).

About a year ago, I ran across this recipe for the style of mojito that Ernst Hemingway drank. While I liked this recipe, I noticed a couple of things that I didn't care for as much. I didn't like the way that the brown sugar muted the spearmint. I've grown used to the minty brightness of my first recipe, and I've experimented with brown sugar (and even honey) before and dismissed it as too much extra competing flavor. I also didn't like the dominance the Champagne had in the drink. It overpowered what I've come to consider the primary experience of a mojito: bright spearmint, background lime, and a rum foundation. That being said, I still liked the character and complexity that the Champagne contributed.

I had recently read a recipe for a Champagne Mint Julep that used a sparkling moscato wine and it struck me that I might be able to substitute it for the Champagne in the mojito and maybe even leave out the sugar entirely! After some experimentation, I realized that there is a lot of variation in sparkling moscato wines. Many of them are VERY sweet and have a very heavy grape flavor. This is to be expected since the muscat grape is a table grape and what you're getting is grape juice wine.

I ran into a good mojito candidate when I tried Barefoot Bubbly Moscato Spumante wine. It's not overly sweet and doesn't have a heavy grape flavor. This is now my favorite way to drink mojitos!






My Champagne Mojito
8+ fresh spearmint leaves
1 Tbsp lime juice
1.5 oz white rum
3 oz moscato sparkling wine (Barefoot Bubbly Moscato Spumante)
3-4 ice cubes

I'm going to continue to play with the proportions, but I'm pretty happy with it right now. It's a really simple recipe, and it has all the qualities that I look for in a mojito. The biggest change is that's it's not very sweet. I've made it for some friends and one said that it struck him as a "grown up" drink. And they've all really enjoyed the recipe!

I've tried Barefoot's sparkling Red Moscato and found it to work very well with this recipe as well.