Blotto

The Mojito.

First, let’s get this as clear as a cocktail: if you are of the opinion that Mojitos are meant to cost $14 and come with a black straw, you are a victim of small thinking. If you believe rum drinks are for girls in Ugg boots, I’d like to remind you that pirates do not wear Ugg boots.

Furthermore, I’d like to remind you that the Mojito was Hemingway’s favorite cocktail, and that man ended up BLOWING HIS OWN DAMN FACE OFF.

Here’s the Princeton Review SAT Prep version of what I am saying:

Courtney Love & Heroin : Kurt Cobain’s face :: Mojitos : Hemingway’s face.

That said, I make the best Mojito ever conceived. Sadly you do not know me personally, because I would be happy to make one for you. Also I’m quite the conversationalist so I’m sure you’d enjoy my company. Quite a shame for you.

I am not going to give you my Mojito recipe. I am going to describe it to you, because you are an adult, and you do not need a little chart.

But first, a word on sugar.

The basic Mojito calls for white rum, lime juice, fresh spearmint and soda water. And sugar.

Every person I’ve ever spoken to about making Mojitos has told me something like this:

“The recipe said sugar but I put two and two together and figured hey! I can just use simple syrup! I bought it at Starbuck’s with that Michael Buble CD! I am clever, clever I am!”

You just fucked your Mojito in its ass. Your Mojito now sucks shit off the floor.

You are dumber than every professional baker. My friend Gabe is a professional baker, and he makes very stupid decisions, and you are dumber than my friend Gabe.

Think about sugar for a second. What do we know about it?

1. It’s delicious!
2. It dissolves very easily, because its melting point is extremely low.
3. IT IS A CRYSTAL. IT IS CRYSTALLINE.

Sugar has hard little edges. It is abrasive. It can cut through shit.

When Gabe comes into work in the morning, the first thing he does is take some pills. Then he throws a slab of cold butter into a man-sized professional mixer. He dumps a bunch of sugar in there. He fires up the kitchen-beast, which whips the butter/sugar mixture into a hellfire of abrasion. The sugar crystals cut through the butter, leaving trails of air that are folded into the butter. This is called “creaming.”

Later, when Gabe incorporates the creamed butter into some kind of lavish baked good, those trails of air are inflated by chemical leaveners (baking powder and soda), producing foods that are airy.

So what does this mean to you, who makes a Mojito that is better fed to pigs?

We use actual crystal sugar in Mojitos, because those crystals CUT THE EVER-LOVING SHIT OUT OF FRESH SPEARMINT. And fresh spearmint bleeds FLAVOR.

Okay. On to Mojito prep.

First you gather ingredients. If you use bad ingredients in your Mojito you are a person of low class. You need a high-quality white rum. (If you can’t find this without my help, go drink tea, which you will have to buy pre-brewed because they don’t let you use the stove at your Assisted Living facility.) You need to buy many, many limes. You need fresh spearmint, unbruised. You need sugar, and you need soda water.

Juice the limes. All of them.

At this point, many of you will know what to do next: put some lime juice in a glass with a few mint leaves, dump a bit of sugar in there, and beat the concoction with the handle of a wooden spoon. You will judge quantities using your mind.

This will provide the raw slurry necessary for one Mojito. Add rum and soda water, garnish with lime or mint, serve.

You will do this, provided you want one Mojito, which is obviously not enough liquor for you. If you would like more Mojito than that, and if you don’t want to be called a cocksucker by me, you will employ my method of Mass Mojito Slurry Conjure.

You will need one large container with a lid that can be tightly secured. I use a Nalgene bottle.

Pour a shitload of lime juice into the bottle. Ditto a shitload of spearmint and sugar, again judging shitload proportions using your mind. Add cracked ice. Secure the lid, and shake that bottle like you were the most vigorous motherfucker on earth.

The sugar will abrade the mint, and the ice will batter it all to hell while keeping the sugar from dissolving.

Bust out the strainer. (If you don’t have a strainer, why are you pretending you have a kitchen? Go live in a tent under a bridge with the rest of the gutter punks.  Buy a dog and neglect it.) Strain the mixture into a pitcher. Stir well to dissolve the sugar, then add rum.

When it’s time to drink, add soda water to the mixture and serve on ice, garnished as above.