About the Perfect Mojito

Before moving to Sitges the partner and I lived for a year in Cerdanyola del Vallès. It's a little town in the valley north-ish of Barcelona. It is an industrial town, a university town, sometimes a dreadfully dull town. It wasn't always easy to get to know people, especially with our lack of skills in Catalan. We did meet a few lovely people during our time there. The people at the restaurants we frequented knew and seemed to like us. We hung out in a three or four great little bars (all of them distinctly hetero).

Of the bars, there was Shelter, which closed due to noise violations; Jordi and Jordi's, which was run by a father and son and actually had a Catalan name I can't remember; and Cafe la Bohème. Bohème was as best we can tell the closest thing to a gay bar in Cerdanyola. It had a French-bohemian atmosphere with eclectic decor and a schizoid collection of tables and chairs. Students and "artsy" people gathered there for coffee, cocktails, and conversation. You always got great service from Carlos and his family who ran the bar with him. The music was an mix of popular hits spanning the last three or four decades. 

But the real draw to Bohème was the drinks. They served the usual Spanish bar fare: what people in the U.S. call well drinks, beer, espresso, and an assortment of soft drinks. But when it came to cocktails, Carlos was a perfectionist. He made a vodka and Baileys martini with fresh cinnamon that was to die for. And when he served absinthe, he did it right with the perforated spoon, a sugar cube, and flame. I (barely) remember my first Santa Tecla in Spain because of Carlos' absinthes. (If you've never experienced Santa Tecla before, it's amazing. There's a parade of devils with spinning fireworks. A heavy dose of absinthe adds immensely to the wonder and the stumbling.)

The drink that brought us back to Bohème over and over again was the mojito. Carlos started his mojitos with natural sugar, fresh mint leaves (from a plant), and lime juice. These he crushed in the bottom of a glass with a muddler (I had to look up what the thing was called.). Then he added crushed ice, which he kept on hand especially for mojitos. Next came white rum and a special ingredient. The fifth ingredient of a traditional mojito is soda or plain carbonated water. Numerous attempts to recreate Carlos' mojitos with various sodas, however, have failed miserably. He then garnished it with a sprig of mint and two straws. 

This mojito, Carlos' mojito is the best I have ever tasted. Sweet but not cloyingly so. The spicy flavor of the rum, the freshness of the mint, and the acid of the lime were perfectly balanced with the dark sweetness of the sugar. No alcoholic burn. No bitterness. No syrupy viscosity.  It was cool, clean, and refreshing. 

Mojitos are extremely popular around here, especially for tourists. It's a specialty drink used by many bars to lure visitors. Not many local bars serve them. And honestly most of the tourist bars that do, shouldn't. 

I miss Carlos' mojitos, especially during hot afternoons at the beach or while relaxing at a street cafe in town. As the weather is warming up and tourists are filling the town, I find myself desiring one of those delicious cocktails more and more. Sometimes I miss them enough to order one at another place. 

Just the other day we ran into some friends sitting out front of one of the big bars on our street. The bar had an entire page of their cocktail menu dedicated to mojitos. I decided to try one hoping to come at least close to those divine mojitos in memory. Now, I've had hastily made mojitos with white sugar and obviously old mint. And there was one with so much bottled lime juice you couldn't taste anything else. This one arrived with a mysterious green color. I tasted it. Revolting. It turned out to have mint liquor which completely wrecked the flavor of every other ingredient. 

Ah well, it is better to have loved a mojito and lost it than to have never experienced a great cocktail at all.