Mojito

Bacardi Orange Mojito

The Mojito, my one true love!!  If you're new to the mojito, you're in for a treat, if you have only had the Bacardi pre-mix or in bars, you will never look back!

My first Mojito was in Frankie and Benny's restaurant, I love anything strawberry and they had a strawberry version so I had to try it, I L-O-V-E-D it!  I then had the taste for them and bought the Bacardi Mojito cocktail mix from the supermarket, it was nice, not the best and so expensive!! I started to buy the Sainsbury's own brand of Mojito, which I have to say tastes an awful lot better than the Bacardi version, funnily enough.  If you are buying the pre-mixes, I would advise adding a drop or two of soda water, they are about 14% vol and I'd be conked out after a bottle of the stuff!

After moving back home to Ireland for the summer, and running out of my Sainsbury's Mojito stash, I started to think I would probably be able to make my own Mojito, somehow. I looked into a few recipes online, I noticed a lot of them used sugar cane syrup, whatever that was?  My mam told me we could make our own sugar syrup by heating up sugar and water in a pan, it didn't exactly work out for us, so that was the end of that.  A few weeks later my Mam came home with a surprise...sugar cane syrup!!  So we started muddling and mixing, and OMG, the sexiest Mojito ever!!  Here's the recipe:

Mojito

serves: 1/4 (I have included the recipe for 1 drink and a pitcher containing 4 drinks)

prep time: 5 minutes

 Equipment

• Muddler (improvise with the top of a bottle/pestle/rolling pin)
• Jug
• Straws 
• Glasses

Ingredients

• Half a lime per drink (2 limes for a pitcher of 4)
• 8 mint leaves per drink (32 for a pitcher of 4)
• Sugar cane syrup / caster sugar
• Soda water
• Ice (the more, the better)
• Bacardi (you can use supermarket own brand if you want, but Bacardi tastes the best)

Method

1. Chop the halved lime/2 limes into quaters and place in glass/jug
2. Add 8/32 mint leaves
3. Muddle them together so that you extract the lime juice.  You should not be too forceful and 'mash' the ingredients, use a twisting motion as you gently press down on the mint and limes.  If you do not have sugar cane syrup muddle the sugar in with the lime and mint, use about a tablespoon of sugar.
4. Add 40ml/160ml of Bacardi. (The UK single spirit measure is 25ml and 35.5ml in Ireland, so keep this in mind and alter the measurements if you wish to, this is the measurement I prefer to use.)
5. Then add 20ml/80ml of sugar cane syrup or 1 tbsp/4 tbsp of sugar.
6. Now add 60ml/240ml of soda water.
7. Stir and serve with ice and a straw.

P.S.  I get my sugar cane syrup in Sainsburys (can't find it anywhere else) it's kept with the spirits and you will get asked for ID, ridiculous, I know. its £2 for a 250ml bottle, but its worth it if you have the cash.  Or if you are in Ireland I get a big bottle of it in Superquinn for about €4/€5.

I will add more pics when I make some at the weekend :)

Enjoy

xx