Getting the Mojito Right

Peppermint and Applemint Mojito, with Candymint Garnish

Maybe two summers ago, I confidently proclaimed the summer of the Mojito. I'm sure it was. But this simple drink always seems to elude me. The proportions are difficult to fix. Standard recipes use vaguely different recipes. I am usually left adjusting recipes every time I make the drink. Perhaps this is fine--an experimental mojito of sorts--but it gets me down. I'd rather be able, like with almost every other drink I make, to lay out the correct jigger and mix it down fast and accurate and consistent-like.

Alas, it is not to be. The mojito will always be an experiment. Lay out the proportions--3 oz. gin, 2 oz. lime juice, 2 tbsp. sugar syrup--in a boston shaker. Muddle with mint. Good mint is a must. This might seem obvious, but I'm sure that mint comes down to whatever is handy for most, or whatever the store was stocking. This is why I have now planted four kinds of mint in my garden. My mainstay is peppermint. I also have apple mint and candy mint, both of which are spearmint varieties and more sweet than spicy. I prefer the latter in my juleps. Peppermint stands out more in the mojito, which is not a subtle drink and does not showcase the rum the way a good julep showcases the whiskey. Don't over-muddle. The sugar syrup, I find, tends to eat up the mint oils. I add a half dozen cubes of ice to the boston shaker and give it a good hard shake, sixteen or so worth. Then start testing. I use the straw method to avoid any contamination. Adjustments can then be reshaken or stirred in.

Rival this

Once shaken, the mojito can sit in the Boston shaker while the ice is prepared. This is a laborious process, at least for me.  Crushed ice is a must. I have found that the ice must be durable and thick, with as little air content as possible. Even crushed ice must have a backbone or the drink will become flaccid. My Rival Ice-O-Matic Electric Ice Crusher does a nice job, even if it is a little messy.

I prepare the glasses with ice, add an appropriate amount of soda water to the mojito mixture, and stir that up. Then I pour out the mojitos, adding ice if necessary so that it touches the rim. Pop a straw in and serve.

This summer will be beyond the mojito--beyond any one drink, actually--but it is nice to start here and feel utterly comfortable mixing down a classic.

Adventures in Coconut Land

coconut purée

My daughter went nuts at the DeKalb Farmers' Market today, insisting we buy a coconut. At a dollar a coconut I was in no mood to argue. One learns to pick one's battles in the eternal death struggle that is parenting. So we came home with a coconut.

I cracked it open, drained it, and we cut out the flesh. I was sure a seven year old child who had never had fresh coconut would find it disconcerting, or perhaps just "not what she was expecting," but instead she quite liked it. She insisted we buy more, and immediately wanted to make a drink from it.

Which immediately fired my interest. If there is anything that fresh ingredients demand, it is a proper glass to be put in with the proper libation. For coconut, the most obvious place to start would be a piña colada. But the proper recipe calls for coconut cream. How to make that?

coconut boil

None of my cookbooks were helpful. Turns out the Italians, French, Julia Child, and those Brooklyn hipsters do not work with fresh coconuts too often. I turned to mr. google, who turned up a mass of dispiritingly dissimilar information. According to several recipes, one needed to puree the flesh and bring to a boil with 1 1/2 cups water, let sit for thirty minutes, strain, then chill. This makes coconut milk, but chilling will separate the cream. Well, okay. But Alton Brown wants you to grate and then cook it up with a certain amount of 2% milk to make either cream or milk (less for the cream, obviously).

coconut sieve

I opted for the former recipe. With some slight modifications.

I cut the flesh up and put it in the blender with a little water. Once it was ... grated, or whatever one might call its state after being pulverized, I combined it with one cup of water and heated it to boiling over the stove. It took almost no time at all. I let it sit for half an hour, and then strained it. This yielded 1 1/4 cups of coconut milk, or cream, or whatever the substance was. I chilled it, and an hour or so later, we made piña coloda. The recipe for that was pretty standard:

2 oz. coconut cream
3 oz. pineapple juice
2 oz. rum
1 tsp confectioner's sugar
a heap of ice.

And blend.

coconut borracho

And enjoy.

the peach and the fugitive

I never knew the peach before arriving in East Point. Of course, I had bought peaches before--sad, shriveled creatures picked well before their prime and aged in corporate grocery distribution centers before being stocked in a well-lit produce section. I liked them in pies well enough, but couldn't really stomach them as fruit. They lacked any tartness, any character, and the sweetness never seemed to make up for its mealy texture and lack of balance.

But then I came here, and I hit a peach orchard. The score was a complete bucket full of Elberta Reds, picked mainly by my little traveler. And the bounty was good. The sweetness of these peaches sat inside a firm and meaty texture. Suddenly I was eating peaches every day. Devouring them whole. Taking them with me to work. Sweating for the next score.

Which brings me to peach syrup. I pick my peaches at Gregg Farms, a quaint orchard in Griffin County. In addition to peaches, blueberries, and corn, patrons can buy peach ice cream, peach jelly, peach preserves, jalepeno-peach jelly, and a variety of pickled goods like chow-chow. And, I discovered on the last trip, peach syrup. It sits in a beautiful tabasco-style bottle and sports a rather cozy looking cinnamon stick.

So, for the summer's last fling, I will need to make a peach cocktail. My default would be a rather boring "rum peach": dark and light rum; peach syrup; lemon juice, garnished with a cinnamon stick. I haven't tried this, but I assume it would be good. But I've also found this one on Esquire Magazine: David Brown's Bitter Peach:

• 1 oz Gran Classico Bitter
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1 oz peach syrup
• 1 small egg white
• Dash Peychaud's Bitters
Combine ingredients, except for Peychaud's Bitters, with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Top with Peychaud's Bitters.

Results will be forthcoming.

Problematizing the Mojito

Muddling it up

For all of its gifts, the mojito is a frustrating drink. Short of adjusting the citrus source (substituting, say, kumquats for limes) or using mint-infused simple syrup rather than simply just muddling sugar and mint, there is not much you can really do with this drink. Granted, somewhere a househusband is muddling strawberries or blueberries with the mint much to the delight of his neighbors and fellow daddy-friends who have brought the kids over for a playdate-bbq-boozefest. I am not turning up my nose at such endeavors. If and when I start growing strawberries worthy of serious consumption, I will make all manner of simple drinks infused with that fruit.

But I want to mess with the mojito now, and I don't want to just throw some extra fruit into the mix. I have nothing from the garden to spice it up. So I decided to add a dash of bitters. Having purchased a small batch (one ounce) of Bittercube Jamaican #1 bitters (flavor profile: allspice, ginger, black pepper), I added a dash at the mixing stage and let it settle through the drink.

This addition subtly enhances the mojito.  The effect comes through mostly through the nose, which is immediately assaulted by the allspice and pepper. But then the bitters recede in favor of the rum and its friends. One adjustment I will try: add the bitters and don't stir. It curls through the mojito like cigar smoke and takes its time settling, making it an attractive addition right before stirring.

In truth, this is a corruption of the true mojito. My standard recipe is fairly traditional: muddle the juice of half a lime, a small pour of mint-infused syrup, and fresh peppermint; add rum (circa 2 oz.) and stir; add ice, splash that soda, stir again. Then go to flavor country.

The bitters doesn't tie the drink together, or balance the drink. Nor am I sure that it successfully adds complexity. In short, proper criticism will take more engagement.

The Social

Given that all great art is theft, this does not seem such a bad thing. The following is a drink adapted from a drink invented at The Social, a truly fine and underrated restaurant in Atlanta. In actuality, the drink was introduced to me by a fellow east pointer, who adapted it from a drink invented by a bartender at The Social. Derivative drinking at its finest.

muddle sugar and strawberry in a Collins glass. Add basil and muddle. Then quarter a lemon and muddle it as well. Add rum--silver or gold depending on preference. Top with pineapple juice and ice, then a splash of soda.

This is a drink that will layer its flavors. The strawberry pulp and pineapple juice give it a fruit forward sweetness, while the herbal tinge refreshes. All is balanced by the buzz on the tongue, and the rum can really be brought forward by this.

The muddled fruit and herbs last several refills of rum and soda. We tried both a gold and a silver (Mount Gay Barbados Rum).

This is a drink for the garden on a languorus summer evening. As it happens, we mixed these on an unseasonably cool May evening, with temperatures in the fifties and on their way down to the thirties, thanks to a massive storm front that whipped through town last night. If I had a fully stocked bar, I might have fired up a scotch or bourbon drink for such a night, but that would have disappointed our very fine guest who popped by specifically to introduce us to this cocktail. And we are all better for it.

Mount Gay Rum

On a whim, I bought this white rum from Barbados. If it was a good choice, I'll know by the end of May. In the mean time, here are cocktails to try.