Mojito
The Mojito is one of the oldest Cuban cocktails on record, its roots traced to a sixteenth-century proto-version called El Draque, named after Sir Francis Drake, whose fleet anchored off Havana in 1586. Drake’s sailors mixed local aguardiente, the rough precursor to Cuban rum, with mint, lime and sugar as a remedy for dysentery and scurvy. The combination has proved more enduring than the illness. The modern Mojito is built on white rum, with soda water extending it into a long, refreshing serve suited to the Cuban climate. Hemingway is associated with it through La Bodeguita del Medio, and whether that association is accurate or partly mythologised is debated. The drink does not need it. Technique matters here more than most high-volume bars are willing to invest in: mint pressed rather than muddled, lime squeezed fresh, sugar dissolved before the rum, and soda poured gently enough to survive into the first sip.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Fresh Mint Sprig and Lime Wheel
Ingredients
45ml
A clean, lightly aged white rum with genuine cane character rather than a neutral column product. The rum leads here, and a characterless base produces a flat drink whatever else you do.
20ml
Squeezed immediately before use. The acid backbone, and the element most commonly compromised in high-volume service. Pre-squeezed juice produces a dull, flat Mojito.
2 teaspoons
Sugar rather than syrup, which is the official build and the older one. The grains give the mint something to work against as it is pressed, and they dissolve into the lime before the rum goes anywhere near the glass.
6 sprigs
Pressed gently with the syrup to release the oils without the bitterness aggressive muddling produces. One light press once or twice is the whole technique.
75–100ml
Well chilled, added last, and poured gently down the inside of the glass to preserve every bubble. Flat soda produces a flat Mojito regardless of what preceded it.
Instructions
Squeeze the lime juice immediately before building the drink.
Add the mint leaves and cane sugar to a highball glass.
Press the mint gently once or twice to release the aromatic oils. Do not crush or grind.
Fill the glass fully with large cubed ice.
Add the rum and lime juice, and stir briefly to combine.
Pour chilled soda water gently down the inside of the glass.
Stir once with a single slow upward lift of the bar spoon.
Stand a mint sprig upright at the rim, add a lime wheel and serve with a straw.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Press the mint with the sugar rather than without it. The granules break the surface of the leaf gently as they are pressed, and the lime carries the released oils evenly through the drink instead of concentrating them at the base where the pressing happened. It is a small change in order and a large one in the finished glass. The pressing itself is the other half: one or two gentle applications of downward pressure, no twisting and no grinding, because muddling extracts chlorophyll and raw leaf matter that turn the drink bitter and vegetal. The mint should look pressed rather than destroyed. Then soda last, poured down the inside wall, and one slow upward lift of the bar spoon rather than a stir.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
El Draque was documented in Havana in the late sixteenth century as a mixture of aguardiente, the rough sugarcane spirit that preceded refined Cuban rum, with mint, lime, sugar and water. Whether Drake’s sailors invented the combination or found it already in local use is not clearly established.
The transition from aguardiente to white rum, as Cuban distilling grew more sophisticated across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, produced the Mojito in recognisably modern form. By the early twentieth century it belonged to the neighbourhood bars of the Old City rather than the grand hotels where the Daiquiri and El Presidente were being refined.
The Mint Technique
The mint is the element most consistently handled wrongly in high-volume service, and the verb is partly to blame. Muddle implies precisely the wrong level of force.
Muddling extracts cellular contents along with surface oils, and applied to mint that produces chlorophyll and raw leaf matter which turn the drink bitter and vegetal. The correct technique is a gentle press: enough to bruise the leaf surface and release the aromatic oils held just below it, without rupturing the cells. One or two applications of downward pressure, no twisting, no grinding. The mint should look pressed rather than destroyed, and the difference in the glass is immediate.
The Soda Discipline
The soda is the ingredient most often treated as an afterthought and the one whose handling most affects the first sip.
Well chilled and poured carefully down the inside wall, it keeps its carbonation. Poured carelessly over ice, or left standing open at room temperature beforehand, it delivers a flat drink that no quality of rum or freshness of mint compensates for. The single stir afterwards follows the same principle as a Whiskey Highball: one slow upward lift of the bar spoon to bring the rum and lime up through the soda, and then nothing more.
The Rum Requirement
The Mojito is frequently made with whatever white rum is cheapest, on the assumption that mint, lime and soda will carry a neutral spirit. That assumption is wrong.
A clean, lightly aged white rum with genuine cane character gives the mint and lime something to work with rather than something to cover, and the difference against a neutral column-distilled white rum is audible in every sip. Whatever you use should be a rum you would drink on its own. A rum you would only drink mixed is contributing less than the format deserves, and the format is doing most of the work already.
How to Serve It
Built over ice in a highball, soda poured carefully, a mint sprig upright at the rim and a lime wheel alongside. Serve immediately with a straw positioned beside the mint so the nose sits in the bouquet on every sip.
It is among the most sessionable drinks there is: long and low enough in perceived strength for extended warm weather drinking, and complex enough in its mint and citrus interaction to keep rewarding attention. Build it properly every time. The gap between a good Mojito and a careless one is wider than for almost anything else.
The Spirit
White RumWhite describes a filter rather than an age. A good deal of light rum spends time in oak and then has the colour taken back out with charcoal, which leaves the roundness that ageing gave it and none of the shade.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Mojito?
One of the oldest Cuban cocktails on record: white rum, fresh lime, sugar, mint and soda water, built long over ice. Its roots trace to a sixteenth-century proto-version called El Draque, named after Sir Francis Drake.
Does the rum matter in a Mojito?
Yes, considerably. A clean, lightly aged white rum with genuine cane character gives the mint and lime something to work with rather than simply cover. A rum you would only drink mixed contributes less than the format deserves.
How should the mint be handled?
Pressed, not muddled: one or two gentle applications of downward pressure to bruise the leaf and release the oils just below the surface. Muddling extracts chlorophyll and raw leaf matter, which turns the drink bitter and vegetal.
Why does mine go flat?
Almost always the soda. It needs to be well chilled, opened fresh, poured gently down the inside wall and then stirred exactly once with a slow upward lift. Everything else can be right and a careless soda pour still ruins it.
Master the Techniques
You Might Also Like
Daiquiri
The Daiquiri is a sour in its most elemental form: white rum, fresh lime juice and sugar syrup, shaken and served up. Three ingredients, no bitters, no liqueur, nothing to hide behind. It takes its name from a mining district on the south-eastern coast of Cuba, near Santiago, where Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer, is credited with combining local white rum with lime and sugar around 1898. Whether Cox invented it or documented what Cuban workers had been drinking for years is not something the record can resolve. What is not disputed is that it was refined and popularised in Havana at El Floridita by Constantino Ribalaigua Vert. The simplicity is the point and the problem at once. There is nothing in the construction to compensate for a poor rum, juice that was not squeezed fresh, or a syrup made carelessly. Every variable is fully exposed, which is why a properly balanced Daiquiri demonstrates more skill than a ten-ingredient tiki drink.
Gin Rickey
The Gin Rickey is gin, fresh lime juice and soda water over ice, and there is no sugar in it of any kind. That absence is the whole drink. It is what separates a Rickey from a Fizz, and it is why the gin matters more here than in almost anything else you can build. It is named after Colonel Joe Rickey, a Missouri lobbyist who drank his bourbon with lime and soda at Shoomaker's on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1880s Washington, consistently enough that the bartenders named the order after him. The gin version came shortly afterwards and overtook the original so completely that a Rickey now means gin unless you say otherwise. Rickey himself, by most accounts, thought the gin version was worse. He was outvoted. With no sweetener and only three ingredients, the freshness of the lime is the most consequential thing in the build. Squeezed to order it is bright and genuinely refreshing. Squeezed an hour earlier it is flat and slightly bitter, and nothing else in the glass can cover for it.
Mint Julep
The Mint Julep is one of the oldest documented American cocktails, in written records by 1803 and tied to the American South throughout its history. The word julep derives from the Persian gulab, rosewater, which reached English through Arabic and Latin as a term for a sweet medicinal drink. American bar culture shed the medicine and kept the pleasure. The bourbon association is geography rather than original design. Rye was the dominant American spirit when the Julep first appeared in print, and early recipes used rye, brandy or whatever was to hand. Kentucky’s distilling industry and the Derby’s adoption of the drink completed the change. Technique separates a properly built Julep from bourbon with mint on top: mint pressed rather than muddled, sugar dissolved before the bourbon arrives, crushed ice packed firmly enough to hold the bouquet upright, and a straw short enough to keep the nose in the mint. These are not optional refinements.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
Enjoyed This Recipe?
Explore our full collection of cocktails and discover your next favorite
Browse All Cocktails