Beat the heat with this irresistible mojito recipe: Make it your new go-to summer cocktail

Nothing represents the taste of summer like a cool, refreshing mojito. There are countless myths about where and when this classic cocktail was invented - it was definitely born in Cuba, most likely in Havana and is at least a century old.

Among the more bizarre urban myths is that British explorer Sir Francis Drake brewed up a similar concoction during his jaunt around the Caribbean in the 16th Century, although there is no evidence to suggest any truth in it.

No one is absolutely sure who first came up with the idea of mixing white rum, soda water, lemon or lime juice, sugar, crushed ice and mint - the key ingredients to make a mojito, but it was most likely created in a bar close to the Playa de la Concha in Havana around the turn of the 20th Century.

Hemingway’s mojito in La Bodeguita del Medio

The drink started to become popular and grew in notoriety during the 1920s and 1930s during the Prohibition era in the United States when American celebrities including Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and journalist Ernest Hemingway would nip over to the island to liven up their social lives.

Hemingway even had his own routine bar crawl dedicated to his favorite tipples in his favorite haunts, immortalized in a handwritten note, which is proudly on display in the famous cocktail lounge: “Mi mojito en La Bodeguita, mi daiquirí en El Floridita”.

In Spain, the mojito started to become fashionable in the late 70s and was available practically everywhere by the mid-1980s. Its popularity spread to other European countries and today, it is a summer classic and one of the most widely-requested cocktails in the world.

How to make a Mojito

There is a certain technique to making a mojito, which unlike many other cocktails, is stirred, never shaken. There are also dozens of variations - some of them using white Bacardi rum, others with three-year-old Havana Club Añejo rum. A mojito should be light and refreshing so older rums (five or 10 years) would be too strong.

In a highball glass, add

springs of fresh spearmint (10-15 leaves), one ounce of freshly-squeezed lime juice and two tablespoons of demerara cane sugar. Using a long spoon or muddler, mash the ingredients together, breaking the mint leave so that they release their flavor.

Then add 2 oz of rum, a slice of lime, crushed ice the fill up the glass to the brim with club soda and mix together with a stir. You can add another sprig of mint to to garnish.

Some supermarkets sell prepared mojito syrup which will save time but the taste is inferior to natural ingredients.

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