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the mint-lime cocktail axis
Mint and lime are a powerful combination, especially when used in making cocktails. Combine these two simple green ingredients and add a variety of liquors and you’ll be transported from the Deep South to old Havana to hopping Miami Beach.
One of the hip, new drinks right now is the mojito, a blend of lime, sugar, mint, and rum. But in light Clark Kent taking off his glasses, if you take out the mint, you have a classic daiquiri—and I don’t mean one of those neon drinks you get in most bars and clubs. Go in the other direction, keeping the mint, but losing the lime—while simultaneously replacing the rum with bourbon—and you’re all ready for the Kentucky Derby with a mint julep.
Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that. The proportions of ingredients are different and simple substitutions don’t necessarily add up to good drinks, and you’d be amazed at how the same ingredients mixed up in different proportions end up as completely different drinks.
And then there’s Creme de Menthe, a mint-flavored liqueur that tastes sort of minty in a toothpaste or over-the-top “mint chocolate chip ice cream” way. But again and again, you see it combined with lime juice: the clover leaf, the continental, the Denver mint, and so on.
In fact, I wonder if there are any two flavors that are more popular together and/or apart in cocktails. Hmm. That might take some yummy research.
The drinks
Last weekend, we picked up a big bunch of mint at the farmer’s market and my first thought was… mojito. I’d had them before, but only in restaurants, and liked what I had. But could I make it at home. Swinging by the liquor store on the way home (yes, in Massachusetts all alcohol—beer, wine, and liquor—is sold in private “package” stores and only in those specially licensed stores) and grabbed some Bacardi light rum and club soda. Looking for a good recipe online I tried both the Bacardi web site, a slick Flash-based marketing tool, and one of the many listed on the Food Network site. I don’t recall which one now, which may give you an idea of how it turned out. The main difference was in the muddling. Yep, muddling is one of those bar terms you need to learn. Using a tool called a muddler, you grind various ingredients together in the glass to release essential oils and juices. In this case it’s the essential oils of the mint and the lime juice.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a muddler. Thus the non-muddling recipe that involved putting the ingredients in a shaker and going to town. As you might expect, it doesn’t work as well. It wasn’t bad, but the mint flavor was pretty much lost.
Necessity being the mother of invention (and the liquor store not stocking barware) I tried the Bacardi recipe, but instead of muddling a glass, I got out a bowl and our Pampered Chef meat tenderizer and did some grinding. It worked surprisingly well.
I used 1 part rum, 3 parts clubs soda, 12 mint leaves, 1/2 lime, and 1/2 part sugar (I prefer simple syrup). Muddle together the mint, lime, and sugar, add the rum and club soda and ice and garnsh. Not bad at all.
I think my next conquest will either be the mint julep or the daiquiri (both recipes from a recent episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” show). There’s a whole lot of bourbon in the liquor cabinet, evidence of my wife Melanie’s penchant for making bourbon balls at Christmas (I’ll get to put the recipe up then). I’ll have to sneak some for a julep, although I’ll need some “branch water.“ Then it’s back to Cuba for a quick taste of Old Havana.
Nothing like ice cold cocktails to cool off a long, hot summer.
COMMENTS
You must be able to get sugarcane pretty readily where you are. I don’t think I’ve seen it in my local supermarket.
Posted by Domenico Bettinelli on 07/18/06 at 06:31 PMThat’s the funny thing. Salem has a very large Latino community, mainly Dominicans, but also some Puerto Ricans. I should look in some of the smaller local grocery stores.
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