I'm SURE I didn't invent this drink....

It’s beastly hot and humid here in NYC; too beastly for me to indulge in my usual tipples, so this evening before dinner I squeezed half a lime into a tall (12 oz) glass, melted some sugar into the juice, threw in the spent peel, iced it, chugged in several ounces of black Barbados rum, and topped it off with seltzer from the gasogene.

Quite refreshing. But do you call it a Daiqiuiri With Soda? A Rum Collins with Lime Instead of Lemon? Has someone put this particular highball together before, or am I doomed to go down in booze history as the inventor of the “Ukulele Ike” ?

Quite close to a mojito, which is a fabulous drink of Cuban origin.

A mojito is your drink plus fresh mint leaves.

Doesn’t a mojito use white rum? And no seltzer…kinda like a daiquiri with mint?

Actually, mint WOULD have made a good addition.

I’ve had mojitos with and without the seltzer. I like it better with.

I think you’re right about just using white rum for a real mojito.

I dunno what it’s called, but it sounds damn good. If’n yer really interested, go ask over on eGullet’s rum board. If it’s been invented before, someone over there will know the name.

In the meantime, if I buy a ticket to NYC, can I have one?

(personally, I’m impressed you got so far as mixing a drink. When it’s really hot, I tend to dump the rum over ice, squeeze a little lime in it, and go sit in the crick.)

I make mojitos with dark rum and seltzer or club soda.

I learned to make my mojitos with dark rum–Gosling Black Seal dark rum to be exact. I also prefer to crush the lime and mint leaves with a mortar and pestle, as I’ve seen bartenders do in Miami. Down there, you could easily get guarapo, which is fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice, to add to your mojitos, but a simple syrup will do in a pinch.

It also sounds a lot like a Rum Ricky, which is a version of a Lime Ricky.

That’s the stuff I used last night! Did I say Barbados? I meant Bermuda.

A Rum Rickey, eh? Lime rickeys I know about, just had one Friday afternoon with my spaghetti and fishcakes at Tom’s Diner on Washington Ave, where time stopped in 1936. Lime rickeys are non-alcoholic, though…just cherry syrup and seltzer with a lime squeezed in.

So this drink could be called a Dark Rum Rickey. Or we could substitute Cuban rum and call it a Rickey Ricardo.

There ARE jokes that will send you straight to Hell, you know…