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Bartenders hate mojitos. If you doubt me, order one the next time you go out, and watch carefully for the reaction. You’ll get an eye roll, a cringe, a sigh… and if the bar’s busy enough, she might just refuse to make it.

Mixing mojitos can be an annoying, time-consuming process, whether you’re a professional bartender working a busy shift or a barbecue host mixing drinks for guests. The official recipe – which requires attacking mint leaves, sugar, and water with a muddler for at least 5-10 seconds before adding the liquor – takes time, and the mint leaves and sugar always wind up congealed at the bottom of the glass, making life miserable for whoever is doing the dishes (the busboy, or worse, you, half-drunk and cleaning up after your barbecue.) If you plan on making more than one of these things, you’ll need a better way.

If I plan on whipping up a huge number of mojitos, I start by making a mint simple syrup. Buy a couple bunches of mint from the supermarket, then chop them coarsely – you’ll get about a cup of chopped mint. Bring two cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, then turn the heat to low. Mix in the mint leaves, and let them steep in the water. If any of the water is boiling off, turn the heat down. After twenty minutes or so, strain out the mint, put the water back in the pot over low heat, mix in two cups of sugar, and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. That should be enough syrup to make as many mojitos as you need – and you won’t have to muddle one drink.

Mojitos

• 2 oz light rum
• 1 tsp mint simple syrup (see recipe above)
• 1/4 lime, sliced
• 6 oz soda water (more or less to taste)

1. Fill a tall glass with ice.
2. Add the light rum and mint simple syrup, and stir vigorously to combine. You could get fancy and shake this to combine, if you’d rather.
3. Fill the drink with soda water. Generally, drinks will include three parts soda to every one part of liquor, but you can add less if you want to taste a stronger drink, or more if you need a tall drink on a hot day.
4. Squeeze the lime into the drink. You can throw the wedge away or drop it in, depending on your preference.

That syrup recipe will work for any other kind of simple syrup you can dream up. A lot of bars were playing with basil simple syrup last summer. I make a great ginger syrup the same way – just chop up a ginger root, steep it in hot water for a while, strain out the ginger, stir in some sugar, and you’re all set. Makes a great ginger old-fashioned, or you could just mix it into soda water for a homemade ginger ale.