Spiced Rum Mojito
Here is how to make the rum cocktail:
Cocktail ingredients for a single serving
- 50ml Swan Knight Distillery golden spiced rum
- Fresh mint
- Freshly squeezed 1/4 lime
- Soda water to the top
- Glassful of crushed ice
Recipe
- Mix the above ingredients together
- Pour into a hiball glass filled with crushed ice
- Add a straw
How and when to drink this spiced rum cocktail
When we make this cocktail, it often has a glowing green hue, mostly from the mix of lime juice and fresh mint. In comparison to many cocktails, it is more sensitive to the balance of ingredients, so we found that our sweet spot was a freshly squeezed 1/4 lime together with 10 washed large fresh mint leaves. This provided a taste that was neither strongly lime nor mint but a delightful mix of both. As always, experiment to find what works best for your palate.
For a little more mint in the flavour, either add more mint leaves or crush the existing ones before they are added to the glass. If the cocktail is a little too tart then add a touch of simple syrup to taste and mix thoroughly.
Inspiration for the cocktail
The original cocktail was called the Draque and looks to have originated in Havana, Cuba, around 1586 when Sir Francis Drake visited. Visited might be a genteel word because as a privateer, Sir Francis Drake was looking to storm the city and take the gold stored in the treasury. However, the island was prepared for his arrival and instead he sailed away. An alternate origin suggests that the drink was created onboard one of Drake's ships in order to prevent scurvy, fever and colds. It was prepared with Aguardiente (unaged sugar cane spirit), sugar and lime before white rum replaced the Aguardiente in 1800s by the Bacardi company. At that point, the cocktail's name changed to Mojito. However, there are suggestions that during the Prohibition, visitors introduced locals to the Mint Julep, which then led to the creation of the Mojito.
Naturally, the cocktail has many variations, starting with the Mint Julep where the rum is replaced by Bourbon, and the Mojito Blanco where the tequila is used instead of rum. Other variants include the Cojito that uses coconut rum or the Pineapple Mojito that uses pineapple rum as a base. In Peru, there are a couple of popular derivations called the Mojito de Toronja and the Mojito de Maracuyá, where grapefruit and passion fruit juices are added to the respective cocktails.
At its heart, this is a refreshing drink that uses the mix of mint and lime to bring out the spices in the rum to great effect. Making it into a long drink with the addition of soda water allows the balance of the ingredients to slowly change as the ice melts.
Cocktail ingredients for a single serving
- 50ml Swan Knight Distillery golden spiced rum
- Fresh mint
- Freshly squeezed 1/4 lime
- Soda water to the top
- Glassful of crushed ice
Recipe
- Mix the above ingredients together
- Pour into a hiball glass filled with crushed ice
- Add a straw
How and when to drink this spiced rum cocktail
When we make this cocktail, it often has a glowing green hue, mostly from the mix of lime juice and fresh mint. In comparison to many cocktails, it is more sensitive to the balance of ingredients, so we found that our sweet spot was a freshly squeezed 1/4 lime together with 10 washed large fresh mint leaves. This provided a taste that was neither strongly lime nor mint but a delightful mix of both. As always, experiment to find what works best for your palate.
For a little more mint in the flavour, either add more mint leaves or crush the existing ones before they are added to the glass. If the cocktail is a little too tart then add a touch of simple syrup to taste and mix thoroughly.
Inspiration for the cocktail
The original cocktail was called the Draque and looks to have originated in Havana, Cuba, around 1586 when Sir Francis Drake visited. Visited might be a genteel word because as a privateer, Sir Francis Drake was looking to storm the city and take the gold stored in the treasury. However, the island was prepared for his arrival and instead he sailed away. An alternate origin suggests that the drink was created onboard one of Drake's ships in order to prevent scurvy, fever and colds. It was prepared with Aguardiente (unaged sugar cane spirit), sugar and lime before white rum replaced the Aguardiente in 1800s by the Bacardi company. At that point, the cocktail's name changed to Mojito. However, there are suggestions that during the Prohibition, visitors introduced locals to the Mint Julep, which then led to the creation of the Mojito.
Naturally, the cocktail has many variations, starting with the Mint Julep where the rum is replaced by Bourbon, and the Mojito Blanco where the tequila is used instead of rum. Other variants include the Cojito that uses coconut rum or the Pineapple Mojito that uses pineapple rum as a base. In Peru, there are a couple of popular derivations called the Mojito de Toronja and the Mojito de Maracuyá, where grapefruit and passion fruit juices are added to the respective cocktails.
At its heart, this is a refreshing drink that uses the mix of mint and lime to bring out the spices in the rum to great effect. Making it into a long drink with the addition of soda water allows the balance of the ingredients to slowly change as the ice melts.