Dave Herlong of N9NE Restaurant in Las Vegas demonstrates a new take on a familiar drink. This delicious beverage is basically a Mojito but with absinthe instead of rum:

 

4 to 5 sprigs of mint.

3 lemon wedges

1 1/2 ounces of Le Tourment Vert cocktail absinthe

1 ounce of simple syrup

1 ounce of club soda

1 ounce of 7UP

 

Begin by putting ice lemon wedges and mint sprigs into the shaker. Rather than muddling Dave shakes them. Add absinthe and simple syrup. Shake.

 

Add soda and 7UP to a long glass and add the contents of the shaker. Garnish with mint sprigs.

 

The Mojito (mo-HEE-toe) is one of Cuba’s oldest cocktails. Mojito comes from the African word mojo, which means to place a little spell.

 

According to Bacardi the drink dates back to 1586, when Francis Drake and his pirates raided Havana. One of Drake’s men invented a mojito like cocktail called El Draque made with a crude rum, sugar, lime and mint. The El Draque was consumed for "medicinal purposes". Around the mid-1800s, the recipe was altered and gained in popularity as the original Bacardi Company was established.

 

Other accounts claim the Mojito was invented by slaves working in Cuban sugar cane fields in the late 1800s. 

 

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Drink responsibly. Absinthe was banned in large part because of the rise in alcoholism in the general population of the western world in the late nineteenth century. Don't let history repeat itself.