DISTILLED
PHOTOGRAPH: WEYO/ALAMY
The mojito’s origins are in Cuba, that much is for sure. But although bar La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana lays claim to its creation, it’s more likely it was concocted by slaves on the sugarcane fields or based on a drink that was popularised on Sir Francis Drake’s ship when passing through Havana. He was meant to sack the Spanish of their treasures, but instead he gave them liquid gold. More recently, Ernest Hemingway would relieve the heat of Cuba with this refreshingly minty drink. It was a refinement of the mint-sugar-rum-and-lime ‘el Draque’, or ‘Drake’, and was first recorded in the 1930s.