Mojitos are my favorite cocktail. I’ve been on a quest to learn to create the perfect mojito at home. I recently made some progress on that quest. I learned how to make a delicious mojito that is restaurant quality. It’s not perfect to my tastes, but it’s the best cocktail I’ve ever made at home. Read on to learn the secrets of my real restaurant mojito recipe.
A few days before my birthday, I serendipitously received this email from La Duni, one of our favorite restaurants (so far) in Dallas. It was followed very shortly with an email from my bff Laura, saying, “We should go for your birthday!”
So we did. And we had a really great night. The chef at La Duni told us the story of where he got his mojito recipe. And then taught us to make our own, step by step.
We followed all the steps and made great drinks while we were there, but it wasn’t until we were able to recreate it at home that I felt confident about the real restaurant mojito recipe. But now, we’ve made them on multiple occasions, and they are good. So here’s the scoop.
1. Roll lime back and forth, to loosen up the juices.
2. Cut the ends off the lime and cut it in half. Remove the thick white pith from the center. This makes the mojito too bitter. Then cut the lime up into about 8 wedges and put them in the bottom of your glass.
3. Add fresh mint leaves on top of the lime. The chef suggested 6-8 based on size, but I always use 10 or more. What can I say, I love the mint flavor.
4. Add 2 Tablespoons of sugar.
5. Muddle the limes, mint, and sugar until the lime has released it’s juices. It’s best to do this on a hard surface. To muddle, just push and twist the muddler into the limes and mint. This is the muddler we have. It’s basic and inexpensive, but it gets the job done.
6. After muddling, add lots of ice. Crushed is better, or so says the chef. But we just used regular ol’ cubes. Then add 2 ounces of rum.
7. Stir, trying to scoop everything from the bottom up to the top.
8. Add about 1 oz. of sparkling water. The chef says that bigger bottles of sparkling water are better because they are more fizzy. I used our Soda Stream to sparkle a bottle and just pumped it a few extra times to make it good and fizzy.
Cheers!
Yum! Mojitos are my husband’s favorite. I’ve never tried making them at home but, I’ll have to give these a try, thanks!
I tried several other recipes before this, but they just tasted not so good. This one isn’t as minty as I would like, but it’s still delicious. And tastes like an actual restaurant drink!
love mojitos so much I planted a pot this year with mint, basil and strawberries so I could make a strawberry mint mojito at home. Fresh basil is easy to grow even for me and so is mint…just gotta get those strawberries to work out. Thanks for this recipe!
Ohhh my that looks delicious! I will definitely have to use this recipe.
I love the story that went with this recipe. I never knew about the inner section of the Lime adding bitterness. Very handy to know!