Time to dive into a cocktail that defined an era – the sophisticated, perfectly pink Cosmopolitan. While this drink reached the height of its fame in the late 1990s thanks to a certain HBO series, the ‘Cosmo’ remains a masterclass in balanced flavors, combining citrus vodka, cranberry, and lime in perfect harmony.
A brief bit of history
While several bartenders claim to have invented the Cosmopolitan, the version we know today is most commonly credited to Toby Cecchini, who created it in 1988 at the Odeon in Manhattan. His recipe refined earlier versions by introducing citrus vodka and fresh lime juice, creating a sophisticated cocktail that would go on to become one of the most ordered drinks of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Making the Cosmopolitan
You will need:
Cocktail glass
Boston shaker
Hawthorne strainer
Fine strainer
40ml Citrus Vodka (lemon vodka)
20ml Triple Sec
15ml fresh Lime juice
30ml Cranberry juice
Dash of Orange bitters
Ice
Mixing Method
First, let’s chill our cocktail glass – you can do this by filling it with ice and water while you prepare the drink, or if you have space, keep it in the freezer.
Take your Boston shaker and add all ingredients – the citrus vodka, triple sec, fresh lime juice, cranberry juice, and a dash of orange bitters. Fill your shaker with ice.
Seal your Boston shaker and shake hard for about 10-12 seconds. We want to shake this one properly – not only are we mixing and chilling the ingredients, but we’re also aerating the cranberry juice which helps create that beautiful pale pink color.
Empty the ice from your chilled cocktail glass and, using both your Hawthorne strainer and fine strainer (double straining helps catch any small ice shards), strain the cocktail into the glass.
For the finishing touch, we need to make a flamed orange zest garnish. Cut a piece of orange peel about the size of your thumb, being careful to avoid the white pith. Hold the peel skin-side down over the drink and light a match between the peel and the drink. Quickly squeeze the peel to spray its oils through the flame and onto the surface of the cocktail. This adds both aroma and theater to the presentation.
Variations to Try
Rude Cosmo
Replace the vodka with blanco tequila for a spicier twist
White Cosmo
Use white cranberry juice instead of red for an elegant clear version
Royal Cosmo
Add a splash of champagne for some effervescence
Pro Tips
Always use fresh lime juice – the bottled stuff won’t give you the same bright, clean flavor
The type of cranberry juice matters – look for one that isn’t too sweet
Citrus vodka is key – while you can use regular vodka, the citrus version adds an essential layer of flavor
Double straining gives you a silkier texture and ensures no ice shards make it into the final drink
Temperature is crucial – make sure your glass is well-chilled and shake the cocktail hard enough to get it properly cold
The Cosmopolitan, when made well, is about balance – it should be tart and refreshing, not sugary sweet. The cranberry should add color and subtle flavor without dominating, while the citrus vodka and triple sec work together to create a complex, layered drink that’s sophisticated and refreshing.
Time for one of the world’s most popular cocktails – the Cuban classic that brings together rum, mint, lime, and sugar in perfect harmony. The Mojito is a perfect example of a balanced cocktail, combining the sweetness of sugar with fresh citrus, aromatic mint, and quality rum.
A bit of history The Mojito’s origins can be traced back to Cuba, where it evolved from the “El Draque” – a medicinal concoction of crude rum, mint, lime and sugar used in the 16th century. The modern Mojito emerged in Havana, where it became a favorite of locals and visitors alike, helping establish Cuba’s reputation for exceptional rum-based cocktails.
Making your Mojito
You will need:
Collins/Highball glass
50ml Cuban style Rum
25ml fresh Lime juice
15ml sugar syrup (gomme)
8-12 fresh mint leaves
Soda water
Crushed ice
Bar spoon
Mixing Method
The key to a great Mojito is in the handling of the mint. We want to release the essential oils without turning the leaves to mulch, so technique is important here.
First, take your mint leaves and give them a gentle ‘slap’ between your palms. This might seem strange, but it helps release those precious aromatic oils without tearing the leaves. Place them into your Collins glass.
Add your measured lime juice and sugar syrup to the glass. Many bars actually use 2 bar spoons of white or brown sugar instead of syrup – both methods work well, though sugar syrup dissolves more easily in the cold liquid.
Fill your glass about 2/3 full with crushed ice. Pour in your Cuban style rum (remember, we want that lighter style of rum here – save your dark aged rums for another drink).
Using your bar spoon, churn all the ingredients together. This gentle mixing action helps combine everything while letting the mint release its flavors without becoming bitter. The ice will start to mix with the other ingredients, providing just the right amount of dilution.
Top up your glass with more crushed ice, then add a splash of soda water – just enough to give the drink a light effervescence without drowning it.
Garnish with a fresh sprig of mint (give it another gentle slap to release the oils) and a wedge of lime.
Variations to Try
Strawberry Mojito
Add 2-3 fresh strawberries and muddle them gently with the mint at the start
Royal Mojito
Replace the soda water with champagne or prosecco for an elegant twist
Spiced Mojito
Use a spiced rum instead of white rum for a more complex flavor profile
Pro Tips
Always use fresh mint – the fresher the better
Don’t over-muddle the mint leaves – you want to release the oils, not shred the leaves
Use crushed ice rather than cubed – it helps blend the flavors better and keeps the drink properly chilled
Quality Cuban-style rum makes a big difference – this is not the drink for your heaviest, darkest rum
If using sugar instead of syrup, make sure it’s fully dissolved before adding the rum
The Mojito is one of those drinks that really showcases the importance of fresh ingredients and proper technique. When made well, it’s crisp, refreshing, and perfectly balanced between sweet, sour, and mint notes, with the rum providing a solid foundation that brings everything together.
I’ve decided to make the Master Cocktail Recipe List (available as a printable/downloadable PDF) a little more useful by adding a whole bunch of modern and classic cocktails, bringing the list total to 25.
Hopefully this will help give you some late-Summer cocktail inspiration!
The newly added cocktails are:
Americano
Black Russian
Brandy Alexander
Champagne Cocktail
Cosmopolitan
Daiquiri
Dark n Stormy
El Diablo
Espresso Martini
French Martini
Margarita
Negroni
Old Fashioned
Paloma
Sidecar
Tom Collins
Whiskey Sour
Remember that this list provides a quick reference of the recipes needed for making drinks. Don’t stress too much if you find some of the drinks difficult as we’ll be covering them individually and in much more detail over the next few months.
There seems to be some confusion for the newly enthusiastic home bartender as to what exactly is meant by lime juice – do we literally mean onlythe freshly squeezed juice of a lime or could you use one of the green lime bottles littering the shelves at the supermarket?
Why use lime at all?
When we make cocktails we are aiming to take a selection of different ingredients and mix them together, producing something that (hopefully) tastes better than when we started. To get good flavours we need to make balanced use of some of the 5 primary tastes – sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and umami. I’ll go into a detailed explanation of each of these in an upcoming post but for now we are interested in the main taste associated with lime – sourness.
When drinking freshly squeezed lime juice you notice a strong sour taste on your tongue – this is because limes contain a relatively high level of citric acid which our bodies note as being sour. A sour acidic flavour, when balanced with other tastes (such as sweetness from sugar) adds to the overall depth of the cocktail so if we use it correctly we can give our drinks a crisp, refreshing flavour.
Fresh squeezed Lime
Fresh lime is easily the most important lime for us – the vast majority of cocktails that you’ll come across on this blog referring to lime juice are asking for freshly squeezed lime juice. Buy a bunch of limes from your local grocer, wash them, cut them in half and squeeze with a citrus press or reamer to extract all the juicy, natural goodness. Real, fresh limes will provide the acidic bite that we are looking for and provide a more natural flavour in the final drink.
Depending on where you live these can be pretty costly so try and buy a citrus press to make sure you can get as much juice as possible out of each lime. A tip; use the palm of your hand to push on the lime and roll it around on your bench a few times before juicing and you’ll get more out of it. Expect to get around 15ml juice per half lime/ 30ml per lime.
‘Fresh’ Lime bottles
Often found in the soft drink section of your local convenience store or supermarket, these squeezed lime bottles tend to contain concentrated lime juice that has commonly had preservatives and other bits and pieces added. While these bottles may save a few seconds over the hand-squeezing of a real lime, unfortunately they tend to fail on the taste test, generally lacking the true sour or acidic bite as fresh lime juice and are therefore best left on the shelf.
Roses Lime cordial, other brands of Lime cordials
Lime cordials were originally a mix of concentrated lime juice and sugar although the ingredient list on many modern bottles seems to have grown somewhat with a mix of added preservatives and colourings. Hmm. But anyway…
The original and best known is Rose’s lime cordial, invented by a Mr Lauchlin Rose in 1867 in part as a way to help British sailors in their fight against scurvy, a nasty disease bought on by a diet lacking vitamin C.
Sensible medical types had discovered that limes and other citrus fruits were a good natural source of vitamin C and therefore helped in the fight against scurvy and quickly pushed for laws to ensure that all ships carried a ready supply of citrusy goodness for their sailors. While good in theory, problems arose quickly – citrus fruits were not always easy to source, and even when you could find them they were not particularly appetising when they’d been stored in the hold of a ship for a few weeks. Added to this, drinking straight lime juice is not particularly appealing at the best of times and while it could (and was) made more attractive by adding it to the daily rum or gin rations it was still something to be drunk out of necessity rather than choice. Time for Mr Rose.
Lauchlin Rose had a business supplying provisions for ships and after a bit of experimentation discovered that a mix of concentrated lime juice with sugar allowed him to create a cordial which would provide the necessary vitamin C but in a sweetened, more palatable form than simple lime juice. Added to this the lime and sugar combination was stable when bottled and could be stored for lengthy periods without going off. Created just in time for the Merchant Shipping Act of 1868, which made the carrying of citrus a legal requirement, Rose was on to a winner.
Nothing is perfect however. The sugar that helped so much in creating the cordial is often its downfall when used in cocktails. Remembering from earlier, the main reason we use limes in good cocktails is to add an acidic bite from the citric acid contained in the juice. Unfortunately the sugar that is used to help stabilise the cordial weakens this acidity, ultimately giving a kind of sweet general lime flavour but without the acid that we really want. This results in an unbalanced and (often) unpleasant drink when compared to fresh squeezed lime.
Conclusion
Unless specifically stated, use freshly squeezed lime juice for cocktails – your drinks will taste better. Avoid buying pre-squeezed as squeezing by hand will result in better juice and a better drink.
Lesson – Making a Gimlet
A real classic cocktail now, we are going to start by going against what I’ve just been telling you and using Rose’s cordial rather than fresh lime.
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You will need
50ml Gin
20ml Roses Lime Cordial
Method
Stir in glass
Nice and easy, this can be made in the glass or stirred in your mixing glass and strained into a cocktail glass. We are going to do the ‘stir in glass’ method today.
Take a rocks glass, old fashioned glass or similar and fill with ice. Measure in your gin and lime cordial and use your bar spoon to stir the ice and liquid until it is well mixed and cold – this should take around 30-40 seconds. Garnish with a lime slice and drink, feeling happy in the knowledge that you are tackling the fight against scurvy head-on.
Finished Gimlet
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Variations to try
After making a traditional Gimlet, make another but replace the Roses lime cordial with freshly pressed lime juice. Prepare in the same manner and taste the difference. You should notice that the new fresh lime Gimlet is very sour from the citric acid in the lime juice. To improve the taste add a small amount of simple syrup and stir – the sugar should help bring the drink back into balance and improve the overall taste.
There you go – more than you’d expect to read about lime juice on any given day. Try making the drinks and let me know in the comments section how they turned out.
Another nice and easy cocktail just in time for the weekend, but don’t let the simple ingredients fool you as this is more than just a humble rum and coke – the addition of fresh lime juice gives a balance that makes this an easy drinking cocktail perfect in warmer weather. The balance in this case is achieved through the combination of sweet:sour ingredients, with the sweetness coming from the sugar in the Coca Cola and the sour from the citric acid in the lime juice.
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A little History
The Cuba Libre, as the name suggests, originated in Cuba sometime around 1900 when Coca Cola was first introduced to the island. The name is thought to be based on a battle cry of the Cuba Liberation Army during their war of Independence in 1898, and was called out in recognition of their newly found independence during some heavy drinking sessions.
Making the Cuba Libre
You will need
Collins/Highball glass
50ml Rum (preferably Cuban)
1 lime (preferably ripe)
Coca Cola
Mixing Method
Take your highball and use your measure to pour in 50ml Cuban rum (I’ve used Havana Club as it’s actually Cuban but if you’re from the USA then this isn’t going to be available – light Cruzan or Bacardi will do).
Next, cut your lime in half and use a citrus press to squeeze 15ml lime juice (you can use your measure again to ensure you get the right amount.
Fill your glass with cubed ice – nice big ice cubes are best as they will melt slower than smaller ones. Make sure to get as much ice in the glass as you can – more ice will allow the drink to cool faster and also stops us from pouring too much Coke.
Rum, lime and ice in the glass means it’s time for the Coke. Fill the glass with Coke to the top, but leave a small amount of room so that you can actually pick the glass up and move it around without spilling your cocktail.
Finish the Cuba Libre by cutting a nice wedge of lime and dropping it into the glass, and feel free to add a straw if you feel like it.
Cuba Libre, ready to drink
Done!
Variations to Try
Since you already have the ingredients a good little experiment is to make a Rum and Coke (Cuba Libra without fresh lime) and try the two drinks next to each other. What you should notice is that the addition of the sour citric acid from the lime juice in the Cuba Libra has offset the sweetness of the Coca Cola and helped even out the flavour, or balance, when compared to the rum and Coke.
The next easy variation to try is changing up the rum. Cuban rums tend to be very light in style so if you swap it out for something darker (Mount Gay, Appletons or even darker with something like Goslings Black Seal) you’re going to end up with a heavier, ‘richer’ flavour. You could also try using a spiced rum (Sailor Jerrys, Kraken, Captain Morgan’s Spiced), depending on which brand you use you can get some strong vanilla, citrus and cinnamon style flavours coming through.
Let me know what combinations you try and how they work out by leaving a comment below or posting on the facebook page.
