Classic Mojito Recipe from Havana Before Castro

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# Havana Before Castro by Peter Moruzzi

### When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground

in bookstores now

### Classic Mojito Recipe

- 6 freshly washed mint leaves
- 2 teaspoons bar sugar
- 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
- 2 ounces good aged rum
- Soda water

Muddle the mint, sugar, and lime juice in a tall glass. Add rum. Fill glass with ice. Top with soda. Garnish with mint sprigs.
This recipe and others appear in the book. Read more about Havana’s nightlife -- Drinking, Dining, and Dancing (chapter summary and photos) or download an excerpt from this chapter (Adobe PDF, 1,084 KB).

# Classic Mojito Recipe

The mojito is the drink of the moment: It's served in trendy bars and restaurants; it's sold premixed in bottles by big liquor conglomerates; and it's even the star of its own commercial, in which an impossibly handsome bartender muddles a mojito in time to the techno beat of a hip nightclub. One might be forgiven for assuming that the mojito is a new drink, but it first came to fame at La Bodeguita del Medio over fifty years ago. The Havana bar was to the mojito what La Floridita was to the daiquiri. Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole were La Bodeguita fans, as were Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Fidel’s patronage may account for the fact that the bar survived his revolution and is still serving mojitos to busloads of foreign tourists today. The cocktail historian Wayne Curtis, who dubbed La Bodeguita "Havana's mojito mecca" in his 2006 book, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails, offers the authentic recipe.

—Jeff Berry
aka BeachBumBerry.com

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#### Sippin' Safari: In Search of the Great "Lost" Tropical Drink Recipes... and the People Behind Them

##### by Jeff Berry

From amazon.com: "Beach Bum Berry" as he is better known, leading authority on tropical drinks and polynesian pop-culture, offers up tantilizing new drink recipes and the untold stories of the people behind the drinks.

#### And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails

##### by Wayne Curtis

Travel writer Wayne Curtis follows rum's 400 year history, using ten cocktails to explore topics from slavery to tiki bars.

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