For the Fourth of July, a Question About the Mojito

Soda? No soda? Let's discuss.

Links About Drinks

• The great Chicago cocktail institution, The Violet Hour, has closed unexpectedly following a building maintenance issue and a dispute with the landlord. Robert Simonson has an excellent remembrance. (The Violet Hour’s drinks live on in Toby Maloney and Emma Janzen’s excellent book, The Bartender’s Manifesto.) Something similar happened with Boston’s Drink back in 2023. One day the bar was open. Then it was closed. There was some sort of issue with the landlord. And that was that. Visit your favorite bars while you can.

• Close Company, the neighborhood bar concept from Death & Co., has opened in Las Vegas, inside the Venetian. Those maze-like Vegas casinos do sometimes feel like entire neighborhoods.

• Behold, the Mega Martini. Which apparently is not a joke? Years ago, when I worked as a server in a touristy Florida seafood shack, we served a gigantic blue cocktail in a comically oversized Martini glass. Now it seems you can get an actual Martini in one? I enjoy a cocktail gag as much as the next drinks enthusiast, but I think I prefer mini Martinis.

Happy (Almost) Fourth of July.

This week’s newsletter is arriving early, so you have time to prepare your holiday libations.

When Independence Day arrives on a Friday, it’s time to take the hint and enjoy the long weekend. I plan to spend the holiday with family, near a large body of water, grilling, drinking, and generally doing as little as possible. USA! USA!

In previous years, I have recommended the following drinks for celebrating America’s birthday:

• Blackberry bourbon lemonade, which is, happily, just what it sounds like.

• Piña Coladas, because, well, who doesn’t like a Piña Colada?

• And, of course, the greatest July 4th drink of them all, Philadelphia Fish House Punch. If you’re making drinks for a crowd, I can’t recommend this one strongly enough.

This year, let’s keep things simple with a popular drink I’ve never written about before.

It’s the middle of summer. It’s hot. You’ll probably be outside, with other people.

You want a cold drink that’s easy to make, easy to drink, and broadly appealing to whoever happens to be around.

May I recommend a Mojito?

But as I make my recommendation, I also want to ask a question.

Fundamentally, the Mojito is a Daiquiri variation—rum, lime, sugar, plus a hint of mint. It’s a little like a smash, and a lot like a rum-based Southside.

The Mojito is a crowd-pleaser, a summer blockbuster, a sold-out stadium tour after a greatest hits album. Everyone loves a Mojito.

It’s a popular drink, and also a forgiving drink. Even a mediocre Mojito is still pretty good. A great one is something of a revelation.

But what makes a truly great Mojito? As with so many cocktails, it’s a matter of small choices—the right rum, the right ratio, fresh lime juice.

But in this case, there’s a big choice you have to make. If you’re familiar with the Mojito, as most of you probably are, you may have noticed that there’s a common ingredient I didn’t mention in my description above—club soda.

The last time I was in Miami, every pretty-good bar served their Mojitos with club soda. Most common recipes call for carbonated water, often with a vague and undifferentiated “to top” specification that doesn’t tell you exactly how much to put in.

You can top your Mojito with club soda…if you want. The effervescent appeal of modest carbonation is obvious: it lightens the drink and adds a bit of summery sparkle, turning it into something like a mint-rum soda, like so:

.It’s not bad, especially when you’re dealing with mid-summer heat. It’s even pretty good.

But we are aiming for better than “not bad.” And in every comparison I’ve done, a Mojito without club soda, served over tiny ice shards or pebbles, is clearly superior. It’s more direct, more forceful, more present—a more memorable character.

So here’s my question: Does a Mojito really need soda water? I don’t think so.

And Soda and So

Yes, you lose the carbonation, the sparkle, the bubbly pop—but that carbonation adds dilution, which weakens the flavors underneath. Soda water is bubbly and zippy, but it is, well, water. There’s a reason we refer to weaker, lesser versions of things as watered-down. A soda-topped Mojito is, invariably, watered-down.

And if you’re serving it over medium-sized cubes, it’s not even as cold. Well-crushed or pebble ice ensures a maximally chilly drink. Yes, it will dilute over time, and more rapidly than over a single large cube. But while I don’t recommend actively chugging a Mojito—it’s not a race to the bottom of the glass—this is not a brooding, cold-weather, slow sipper that demands time, focus, and great attention. It’s meant to be consumed through a straw and enjoyed with casual abandon.

Some Mojito fundamentalists might find this a sort of heresy. If so, all I can say is that I’m a heretic in good company. The always-handy Bartender’s Choice app from the gang at Attaboy prescribes no club soda in its version of the drink, and neither does Death & Co.’s Cocktail Codex.

Serving a Mojito this way puts the focus on the core ingredients—the tangy lime, the syrup, the rich and complex oomph of good rum. Yes, I’ve seen Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, many times, and that drop-you-into-the-action opening scene in the club where Colin Farrell orders Mojitos at the club is pretty great.

But this version is a cocktail drinker’s Mojito, not a nightclub staple.

Mojitos, Mo’ Problems?

The most common way to make a Mojito, as far as I can tell, is with Bacardi Silver, which is perfectly fine if that’s what you have on hand. But I prefer it with Flor de Caña 4, the same rum I use in a Daiquiri. Indeed, the entire construction should be rather Daiquiri-like, with rich simple syrup balanced by a slightly larger portion of fresh lime juice. At least one recipe I’ve seen recommends adding a brown sugar cube to the mix, in addition to syrup, giving the mix a bit of grit as you muddle it all together.

For the mint, I use a full sprig of spearmint, just the packaged stuff from the grocery store, typically with 6–9 leaves. As with a smash, the goal is to muddle the mint until the distinct aroma wafts up out of the glass. Before you drink the drink, you should sense it in the air.

As with a Daiquiri, you can spruce this up with a hint of salt or saline, and perhaps a drop or two of absinthe, both of which are flavor enhancers.

But I usually don’t. The flavors in this four-ingredient combo are already sharp enough. No enhancements needed.

For those not willing to make the leap to a no-soda Mojito, you might look to the recipe from PDT, which captures a sort of middle ground. The famed New York speakeasy recommends just a single ounce of club soda, adding a measured hint of sparkle, but not the long, unspecified bubbles of “to top.”

I understand the impulse, and it’s certainly not bad this way. PDT is an outstanding bar. And like I said, Mojitos are almost never truly bad.

But the middle ground feels like a lack of conviction. Top your Mojito with soda water. Or don’t.

Choose boldly. It’s the American way.

Mojito

• 1 mint sprig with 6-9 mint leaves

• 1 ounce fresh lime juice

• 3/4 ounce rich (2:1) simple syrup*

• 2 ounces white rum, preferably Flor de Cana 4 Year Old Extra Seco

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine and muddle all ingredients in a cocktail shaker until you can smell the aroma of mint.

2. Add ice, then shake briefly to chill.

3. Strain into a glass over crushed or pebble ice.¹

4. Garnish with an additional sprig of mint.

   *Rich (2:1) simple syrup: Combine two parts sugar with one part water, by weight, in a blender. Blend for 2-3 minutes on high, until fully combined and integrated. Bottle and store in the fridge. Keeps for a month or more.

The Pups Are Less Excited About the Fireworks

1. The best way to make crushed ice at home is with a wooden mallet and Lewis bag. If you don’t want to buy a dedicated tool, use a hammer and put the ice inside a folded kitchen towel, then pound it until it’s crushed. Just be careful about what surface you pound it on! If you want crunchy nugget ice, you can purchase a dedicated machine, or you can buy bags of nugget ice from Sonic.