Cubanitas and Hemingway's brought the mojito into the Milwaukee limelight and now many non-Cubano restaurants are serving up this warm-weather cocktail with their own unique spins (you can now find mango mojitos and dark rum mojitos in some of your favorite haunts).
And while it is great on a warm day to sit at a bar and suck these babys down with a couple of appetizers, my advice to you is that when you are planting your garden this year, set up a patch to grow mint and use it to mix a pitcher of homemade mojitos on the porch.
Mint is a wonderful herb because it is great for cooking and it will grow just about anywhere. It also happens to be fabulous in cocktails. Sprigs of mint are wonderful with chocolate, ice cream, cucumber salads, with grilled lambchops and chicken dishes and in mint juleps, mojitos, and white sangrias.
To make a mojito:
Ice (cubed or crushed)
1 ½ ounces rum
1 tbsp raw sugar or cane sugar
1 Lime, cut into 6 wedges
Mint sprigs
Club soda
Take one sprig of mint and slice the leaves into ribbons. In a tall glass, mix together ice, the mint ribbons, the juice from three lime wedges, and sugar and mix together (muddle) with a stir stick. When the sugar is dissolved, add the rum and fill the glass to the top with ice and club soda. Garnish with a sprig of mint and a lime wedge.
Amy L. Schubert is a 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry and has worked in every aspect of bar and restaurant operations. A graduate of Marquette University (B.A.-Writing Intensive English, 1997) and UW-Milwaukee (M.A.-Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Writing, 2001), Amy still occasionally moonlights as a guest bartender and she mixes a mean martini.
The restaurant business seems to be in Amy’s blood, and she prides herself in researching and experimenting with culinary combinations and cooking techniques in her own kitchen as well as in friends’ restaurants. Both she and her husband, Scott, are avid cooks and “wine heads,” and love to entertain friends, family and neighbors as frequently as possible.
Amy and Scott live with their boys, Alex and Nick, in Bay View, where they are all very active in the community. Amy finds great pleasure in sharing her knowledge and passions for food and writing in her contributions to OnMilwaukee.com.
