It’s July 11 and this means Mojito Day. On the website of De Goede Huisvader a Dutch article was published entitled Will the real creator of the Mojito please stand up?(Wil de echte bedenker van de Mojito opstaan?) This article was reprinted by Artigenda because it is important to answer the question of who is responsible for inventing the mojito.
Before we start...
Before we begin, it is good to take a moment to explain why this article is no longer available through its original location. This has to do with changing business activities. These have been taken over in part by Artigenda. So in part, articles have been taken over and, where necessary, adapted.
If the stories are to be believed, the Mojito, capitalised or not, was once invented at the Bodeguita del medio in the Cuban capital Havana. That bar, which still exists, is only too proud of that. Even visible on the wall is a text supposedly written by American writer Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961). He would have been a regular visitor and therefore left a catchy text.
"My mojito in La Bodeguita, My daiquiri in El Floridita"
If this quote is believed, the writer had a favourite cocktail at Bodeguita del Medio and El Floridita. If you look closely at the text, something is wrong—the signature to be precise. The letters G and Y differ from the signature we know from Hemingway. Also, the line in the normal signature runs shorter.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
No big deal
It need not be a big deal. Hemingway may not have been entirely in good spirits when he left all this on the wall. Remember, it’s a bar. Maybe he had just had one glass too many. Maybe two or three. What may be called into question, which is a big deal, by the way, is the claim that the bar would have been the breeding ground for the Mojito. The bar opened its doors in 1942, which would thus make the drink very “young”. That is not correct.
Now you want to know exactly how it is and why it is wrong. Why the Havana bar’s claim can be undercut. You can read more about that in the entry on Mojito Day.
