I had a mojito today, for the very first time, like many other things I report on this blog. Thanks to the prodding and generous encouragement by a colleague in the department, I am discovering not just a new palatal delight, but a new lesson in (literary) history. Olga says it’s invented by Ernest Hemingway. Wikiepdia says it’s only Hemingway’s favourite drink. The indisputable fact however is that the man Ernest Hemingway liked his mojito very well that he went to a bar called La Bodeguita del medio and wrote “My mojito in La Bodeguita, My daiquiri in El Floridita” on the wall there. It can still  be seen today in his own handwriting.

A few more things about the bloody author. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, he wrote Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, among many other books. He liked his alcohol, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was in Africa where he was injured and almost killed in a plane crash, and he committed suicide, the bloody guy, in 1961. He also “invented” the mojito.

The drink is made of : white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime, sparkling water and mint. As opposed to KT Martini made only of Sherry wine and soda, the mojito is limy and less intoxicating. I guess that makes the mojito more family oriented, or so? Or maybe not. We need to find an independent assessor. In any case, I’m glad to find in Ernest a kindred spirit of the muse, the wine and the restless feet. Let’s take out the suicide and we may have something close to a match. Now I need to find someone to send me any of his books for free whether electronically or physically. \

Do you need my address?