A golden Mojito with passion fruit, built on aged rum instead of silver. Same mint and lime backbone as the classic, but with more weight underneath it — and a name with four hundred years of history behind it.
Ingredients:
- 2 oz Bombarda Drake or Culverin
- 1/2 oz agave syrup
- 1 oz passion fruit juice
- Juice of 1/2 lime
- 5 mint sprigs, plus more to garnish
- Soda water, to top (optional)
Method of Attack:
- In a tall glass, gently press the mint with the lime juice. Press, do not shred — torn mint turns bitter and leaves black flecks through the drink.
- Stir in the agave syrup, passion fruit juice and rum.
- Fill with crushed ice and stir from the bottom up to lift the mint through.
- Top with soda if you want it longer. Garnish with a fresh mint sprig, slapped once against your palm to wake it up.
About This Recipe:
Havana is the birthplace of the Mojito, but the drink has a longer story than that.
In the 1580s Sir Francis Drake arrived off Havana intending to sack the city of its gold. The raid failed, but his crew were badly sick with dysentery and scurvy, and a party went ashore looking for a remedy. They came back with aguardiente de caña, mint leaves, sugar cane and limes, and built a tonic from them. We know now the lime was the part that worked — the rest simply made it drinkable.
A cocktail called El Draque, using much the same ingredients, was popular in Cuba for centuries afterwards, named for Drake himself. Our Drake rum is named for the cannon; the drink is named for the man. This is where the two meet.
Why this rum:
A Mojito is a balance of four things — rum, lime, mint and sugar — and you are already adding agave and passion fruit here. A rum with added sugar means sweetening the drink twice, which flattens the mint and stops the lime cutting.
Drake is a five-origin dark blend with the molasses depth that makes a golden Mojito worth doing. Culverin is drier and peppery if you want it closer to the classic. Neither carries added sugar, caramel colorant or chill filtration.
Battle Notes:
Crushed ice, not cubes, and stir from the bottom. A Mojito that has not been stirred through is just mint floating on rum.
For the classic silver-rum build and more on choosing a Mojito rum, see our guide to the best rum for a Mojito.
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