The mojito is the drink of the moment: It's served in trendy bars and restaurants; it's sold premixed in bottles by big liquor conglomerates; and it's even the star of its own commercial, in which an impossibly handsome bartender muddles a mojito in time to the techno beat of a hip nightclub. One might be forgiven for assuming that the mojito is a new drink, but it first came to fame at La Bodeguita del Medio over fifty years ago. The Havana bar was to the mojito what La Floridita was to the daiquiri. Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole were La Bodeguita fans, as were Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Fidel’s patronage may account for the fact that the bar survived his revolution and is still serving mojitos to busloads of foreign tourists today. The cocktail historian Wayne Curtis, who dubbed La Bodeguita "Havana's mojito mecca" in his 2006 book, And A Bottle Of Rum: A History Of The New World In Ten Cocktails, offers the authentic recipe.

—Jeff Berry
aka BeachBumBerry.com