Mojito Mocktail – a Classic Cocktail with a Halo

Last Updated on March 9, 2024

How to make a Mojito Mocktail

At one time the most popular cocktail in the UK and France, a classic Mojito now sits 9th in the list of best selling cocktails from around the world.  Top of the list is the Old Fashioned – and you’ll find plenty of other favourites there too including the Negroni in second place and the Daiquiri in third.  But, the Mojito is a long drink that in my view works particularly well as a mocktail.  You can even find recipes that simply leave out the rum altogether.

For me, though, the rum flavour is essential.  It’s that combination of sugar, lime and mint to complement the rum which makes for a delicious mouthful.  So, how to make a Mojito Mocktail?  I’d suggest what you need is an alcohol-free distillation that tries to mimic the taste of rum.  There are a few options around now, most of which have only appeared on the market in the last twelve months or so.  CleanRum is available from the same people who make CleanGin – and Lyres have a range of not one but three ‘Cane Spirits’ (Dark, Light and Spiced).  I’ve got a beautiful bottle of Fluère dark cane spiced which I’m using here as the base for my Mojito mocktail

Fluère is made with the same technique that’s used to produce alcoholic spirits like gin and rum.  The range includes original (with the same type of botanicals used for gin), raspberry, smoked agave and spiced cane, made from pure sugar cane molasses, just like the finest rum, which I’m testing here.  Each bottle costs £20 for 70cl (ABV 0%). Available from Ocado, The Drinks Shop, Master of Malt, Amazon and shop.fluèredrinks.com. The makers suggest testing it with the Cuban, a cocktail that’s made by filling a highball glass with ice, adding 45ml Fluère Spiced Cane and 120ml Coca Cola, finished with a lime wedge.  But, for me, the Mojito is my long drink of choice, so that’s what I’m making.

Interestingly, it’s a drink which also originated in Cuba.  One theory is that the local South American Indians created the drink from their own version of sugar cane rum, with lime, sugar cane juice and mint.  And, it’s likely that the lime juice was something that would have helped with scurvy and dysentery, while the mint and sugar were used to disguise the taste. Like many classic cocktails, there are all sorts of other theories including that it was invented by Sir Francis Drake or that it was the creating of African slaves working on the sugar cane fields.  And, does the name come from a Cuban seasoning made from lime, called Mojo – or that it is from the Spanish word for ‘a little wet’ (mojadito).  Without stepping back in history, we have no way of knowing.

Now, if you are trying to avoid alcohol, whether for January or forever, I can recommend trying Fluère dark cane spiced for all your rum-based mocktails.  In a mojito it is convincing and I’ll be trying it next with ginger ale and with coke and lemon.  Apart from anything else, the bottle is so elegant, you’ll want to have the range in your drinks cabinet.

If you’d like to try a mojito mocktail for yourself, you’ll need a lime, a good handful of mint leaves, sugar syrup and Fluère, together with plenty of ice.  The traditional glass for a mojito is a highball, but any long glass with work perfectly.  If, like me you don’t have a proper muddler then it’s perfectly acceptable to improvise. I use the end of my wooden rolling pin, which fits neatly inside a highball.

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Mojito Mocktail

Prep Time

5 mins

 

Delicious long cocktail with Fluere, soda water, mint and lime - Mojito Mocktail

Course: Cocktail

Cuisine: American

Keyword: lime, mint, Rum

Calories: 155 kcal

Author: Fiona Maclean

Ingredients

• 60 ml fluere spiced spirit or similar zero alcohol cane spirit
• soda water
• ice
• 1 large handful of mint
• 1 lime
• 15 ml 2:1 simple syrup

Instructions

1. Put the mint into a small jug and crush the leaves with a muddler

2. Pour over the fluere

3. Cut the lime into six segments. Put one to the side and juice the remaining segments into the jug

4. Add the sugar syrup and stir well

5. Fill a highball with ice

6. Pour the contents of the jug over the ice

7. Top up with soda and stir gently

8. Garnish with a lime segment and a sprig of min

Nutrition Facts

Mojito Mocktail

Amount Per Serving

Calories 155

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Looking for something different?  The Gimlet Mocktail is a great zero alcohol gin-based drink to enjoy