Virgin Mojito
The Havana highball with nothing standing between you and the mint.
Photo: Drinks - Virgin Mojito, Orange Juice by Aditijuneja2023 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · All credits
Ingredients
Measures below are multiplied for 12 drinks. Unmeasurable amounts such as “a splash” are left as written.
- 300 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 300 ml line. Lime juice - Freshly squeezed, or the drink tastes like washing-up liquid
- 240 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 240 ml line. Simple syrup - 15ml if your limes are sweet ones
- 120 leaves Mint
- 1680 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 1680 ml line. Soda water - Straight from a cold, freshly opened bottle
- 12 sprigs Mint sprig (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Press the mint with the lime and syrup, fill with crushed ice and top with soda.
Method
Batch (12 drinks)Batch (12 drinks) - about 2.22 l of measured ingredients, before ice and dilution.
Timings and per-glass steps below are written for one drink and are not scaled. A full jug takes longer to chill, so stir or shake until it is properly cold rather than by the clock, and pour over fresh ice one glass at a time.
- Put the mint into a highball glass with the lime juice and syrup.
- Press it gently with a muddler - you want the oils out of the leaves, not the leaves in pieces.
- Fill the glass with crushed ice and churn with a long spoon so the mint rises up the sides.
- Top with more ice and the soda water, then add a slapped mint sprig and serve it with the spoon still in it.
Serve it
Volumes in this story are multiplied for the size above, along with the ingredients. Years, ratios and the capacities of glasses and jugs are left as written.
Virgin Mojito
Without the rum, this is the same drink stripped back to what was always doing the work: lime, sugar, mint and a great deal of ice. The rum in a Mojito is largely texture - it fills the glass and lengthens the drink - so the fix is simply to be generous with everything else. It is the best thing in this book for a hot afternoon and it improves every hour the mint has been growing on the windowsill.
Getting it right
Every mistake a Mojito invites, this one invites twice as loudly. Bruised mint turns bitter, so press the leaves rather than grinding them, and buy or grow more mint than you think you need - ten leaves is the floor, not the target. Crushed ice matters more here than in the rum version, because it melts into the drink and dilutes it, which is how a mocktail finds a little looseness without a spirit to lean on. Cold glass, cold soda, and drink it before the ice gives up.
Tasting notes
Cool and green, with sharp lime up front, a soft cane sweetness in the middle and the mint arriving last as a smell rather than a flavour. Genuinely refreshing rather than merely alcohol-free.