Mojito — The Story Falls Apart, and the Framed Note on the Wall Has Drawn Doubts Too

Between the tale of a sixteenth-century privateer and the earliest recipe actually on record, there is a gap of more than three hundred and forty years. And the other piece of "evidence" — the one framed on the bar's wall — has drawn the scrutiny of experts.

1. Two Stories Often Told

The Mojito comes with two widely repeated origin stories.

The first. In the late sixteenth century, when the fleet of the English privateer Francis Drake appeared off the Cuban coast, his crew is said to have had a mixture of mint, sugar, lime, and the local spirit. The drink came to be called “El Draque” — Drake’s name — and this, the story goes, was the ancestor of the Mojito.

The second. On the wall of the Havana bar La Bodeguita del Medio hangs a framed line attributed to the writer Ernest Hemingway: “My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita.” It has been quoted around the world as proof that Hemingway loved this bar.

These two stories are very nearly the whole of what surrounds this drink. And checking either one changes the picture.

2. A Gap of More Than Three Hundred and Forty Years

We start with the first story.

The standard reference work on spirits history states plainly of this Drake origin story: “Nothing in the historical record supports this.” It acknowledges the tradition’s existence in Cuba while noting that no contemporary sixteenth-century source has been found linking this drink to Drake.

So from when can it actually be traced?

The late 1920s. A recipe called “Mojo de Ron,” which appeared in a cocktail book published in Havana in 1929, is the one that multiple specialist sources cite in agreement. Some sources point to a related recipe in a book two years earlier, in 1927. And the name “MOJITO” as we know it now first appears on record around 1931–32, on the menu of the Havana bar Sloppy Joe’s.

In other words, whichever record you take as the starting point, this drink reached print no earlier than the end of the 1920s. Counting from 1586, when Drake’s fleet is said to have appeared off the Cuban coast, that leaves a gap of more than three hundred and forty years. Across that span, no record linking this drink to Drake has been confirmed.

The origin of the name is equally unsettled. From the Cuban lime-based sauce “mojo,” from the Spanish “mojadito” (slightly wet), or from a separate word of African origin — the specialist literature lists these side by side without resolving the question.

3. The Sheet of Paper on the Wall

The second story is more involved.

Regarding that famous signature at La Bodeguita del Medio, a Hemingway scholar commissioned a handwriting expert to examine it. What has been reported is a discrepancy between Hemingway’s own signature habits and the handwriting in the frame. Specifically, the point raised is that Hemingway did not put loops on his “g” and “y,” while the signature on the wall does.

Another scholar has questioned the association itself. One reason given: among the vast number of surviving photographs of Hemingway, not one shows him holding a Mojito. Other drinks, it has been noted, appear far more often than the Mojito in the letters and biographies of his own time.

There is also a record of the bar’s own founder saying, during his lifetime, that Hemingway was not in fact a regular there.

For the sake of clarity: these are points raised by scholars, and we are in no position to refute the bar’s own account. What is certain is simply this — that experts have publicly raised doubts about the authenticity of this sheet of paper.

4. Last Time’s Bar, and This Time’s

Last time, we wrote about a different bar. At El Floridita, also in Havana, there survive booklets that were actually printed and distributed in the 1930s. The bartender of the day published them himself, and several editions are preserved in a specialist archive. In them, a drink named after a regular customer already appeared, already carrying his name.

Something printed is more solid than something spoken. It doesn’t depend on anyone’s memory — it proves, as an object, that it existed at the time.

What survives at this bar is not printed but a single handwritten signature. Handwriting, unlike print, leaves no record of its own reproduction. Which is why, when its authenticity is challenged, there is no external evidence to support it.

The same writer’s name survives inside a printed booklet at one bar, and wavers as a single handwritten sheet at another. That difference isn’t a coincidence — it comes from the nature of records themselves.

5. Placing a Fifty-Six-Percent Bottle in the Rum Slot

A Mojito has traditionally been built on the foundation of a light Cuban rum. This time, in that slot, we placed LAODI 56k White Rhum, made by Laos’s Lao Agro Organic Industries.

Here’s something that should be stated precisely. The producer’s official recommendation for this bottle is neat, undiluted use. Cocktails built on dilution fall outside its primary official recommendation. The same distillery also makes a separate bottle that is positioned for cocktail use.

We chose this one anyway because its production character seemed to engage with the structure of this particular drink. It’s made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice rather than molasses, and distilled in small batches in a compact still known as a kabuto-kama. Fifty-six percent is the result of a design that doesn’t assume the addition of water.

A Mojito is a drink heavily diluted with ice and soda. What happens when a spirit designed without dilution in mind is placed at the base of a drink that is diluted — this is not a use aligned with the official recommendation. It is our editorial judgment, and we wanted to state that premise up front.

6. Placing a Kokuto Liqueur in the Sweetness Slot

The Mojito’s other slot is sweetness. Traditionally, white refined sugar or a syrup has filled it. This time, we’re placing here a kokuto (Japanese black sugar) liqueur made by Okinawa’s Mizuho Shuzo and its partners.

Here too, something worth stating precisely. The base spirit of this liqueur is not rum — it’s awamori. Awamori is distilled from rice, not from sugarcane. Kokuto is then dissolved into it, and a small amount of rum made from kokuto is blended in as well — that is how this bottle is composed.

And the nature of that kokuto is the reason for this choice. Kokuto is sugarcane juice boiled down and set without separating out the molasses. With white refined sugar, boiling produces crystals, which a centrifuge then separates from the molasses; further refining steps such as decolorizing produce that familiar whiteness. Kokuto never goes through that separation. The whole of the pressed juice remains as it is.

If the rum at the base is “sugarcane juice distilled,” then the core of this sweetness is “sugarcane juice boiled down.” Chiefly, one was distilled and the other was boiled — two things drawn from the same pressed juice by different means — meeting within the same cocktail. That said, since the liqueur itself contains a small amount of rum, the two aren’t cleanly separated either. Inside the boiled-down sweetness, a little distilled sugarcane is already mixed in — a nested structure.

7. Judgment Materials for the Bar

This is as far as we can take it. What comes next belongs to whoever is standing behind the bar.

The following is a framework of considerations for professional bartenders. It is not a recommendation for home preparation.

① How to handle fifty-six percent.

This bottle is designed without dilution in mind. Placed into a diluted format like the Mojito, do you carry that strength through as it is, or adjust it through the degree of dilution? That single decision all but determines the character of this drink. It isn’t ours to make.

② A kokuto liqueur doesn’t bring only sweetness.

This liqueur has awamori at its base, and that base carries its own character. How to regard a structure in which adding sweetness also brings in a second lineage of distilled spirit is where the design diverges.

③ Mint and lime — the elements that can’t be swapped.

Of the components that make up a Mojito, mint and lime are not part of BG’s range. This is designed on the assumption that you’ll use what’s already behind your bar.

④ We have not included proportions.

The balance of rum, sweetness, and lime has an outsized effect on how this drink lands. We consider the specific proportions a matter for each establishment to design, and we have not included them here.

Where to Begin the First Build

Do you carry the fifty-six percent through as it is and absorb it through the degree of dilution?

Do you first confirm the awamori character that the kokuto liqueur brings with it?

Or do you keep your usual build and swap only the base, to measure the difference?

Any of these is a valid starting point. The moment that first choice is made, it already belongs to that bar.

8. What Remains After Both Are Called Into Question

We return to the question this article opened with.

The sixteenth-century story stopped short before a gap of more than three hundred and forty years. The sheet of paper on the wall wavers before a specific point about handwriting. Both of the famous stories around this drink change shape when you check them.

Something does remain, though. A recipe printed at the end of the 1920s. A name recorded on a menu from 1931–32. We may not know who thought of it first, but we do know when it reached print. That is as far as we can say for certain about this drink.

9. What We Haven’t Answered Yet

This article addressed two origin stories, and the editorial reasoning behind our choices in two slots — rum and sweetness.

How to handle the strength, the degree of dilution, the choice of mint and lime — these we’ve laid out as considerations, not decisions.

Next time, we return to gin. A story of the navy and citrus. The Gimlet.

Coming up next.