Mojito Royal
| IBA Official Cocktail | |
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| Type | Cocktail |
| Primary alcohol by volume | |
| Served | On the rocks; poured over ice |
| Standard garnish | sprig of mint (Yerba buena in the original recipe), lemon slice |
| Standard drinkware |
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IBA specified ingredients 
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| Preparation | Muddle mint leaves with sugar and lime juice. Add a splash of soda water and fill the glass with cracked ice. Pour the rum and top with soda water. Garnish and serve with straw. |
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Mojito recipe at International Bartenders Association
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Mojito (/moʊˈhiːtoʊ/; Spanish: [moˈxito]) is a traditional Cuban highball.
Traditionally, a mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, soda water, and mint. The original Cuban recipe uses spearmint or yerba buena, a mint variety very popular on the island. Its combination of sweetness, citrus, and mint flavors is intended to complement the rum, and has made the mojito a popular summer drink. The cocktail has a relatively low alcohol content (about 10% alcohol by volume).
When preparing a mojito, lime juice is added to sugar (or syrup) and mint leaves. The mixture is then gently mashed with a muddler. The mint leaves should only be bruised to release the essential oils and should not be shredded. Then rum is added and the mixture is briefly stirred to dissolve the sugar and to lift the mint leaves up from the bottom for better presentation. Finally, the drink is topped with crushed ice and sparkling soda water. Mint leaves and lime wedges are used to garnish the glass.
The mojito is one of the most famous rum-based highballs. There are several versions of the mojito.
Havana, Cuba, is the birthplace of the Mojito, although the exact origin of this classic cocktail is the subject of debate. One story traces the Mojito to a similar 16th century drink known as "El Draque", after Sir Francis Drake. In 1586, after his successful raid at Cartagena de Indias Drake's ships sailed towards Havana but there was an epidemic of dysentery and scurvy on board. It was known that the local South American Indians had remedies for various tropical illnesses, so a small boarding party went ashore on Cuba and came back with ingredients for an effective medicine. The ingredients were aguardiente de caña (translated as burning water, a crude form of rum made from sugar cane) mixed with local tropical ingredients: lime, sugarcane juice, and mint. Lime juice on its own would have significantly prevented scurvy and dysentery, and tafia/rum was soon added as it became widely available to the British (ca. 1650). Mint, lime and sugar were also helpful in hiding the harsh taste of this spirit. While this drink was not called a Mojito at this time, it was the original combination of these ingredients.
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