MATO Rounds

Key Lime Mojito™
Winter is sad. Drinking is KEY.

If you are going to make this thing you will need a few ingredients.

• Alcohol

• Use a white or very light rum
• You can cheap out on this part and go as low as Bacardi so long as you'll do a better job buying the fresh ingredients

• Syrup

• Viciously agitate a 1:1 mixture of sugar and hot water
• Keep antagonizing it until it turns completely clear
• Majorly chill it out in the freezer
  

• Produce

• Grab a good-sized bag of key limes, figure ~4 per drink including garnish slices
  
• Yellow ≠ bad (key limes are not supposed to be dark green)
• If you do not have a mint bush living in your apartment, try to pick out a nice fresh bunch or two from your local farmer's market or decent grocery store
  
• Test mint before you buy it by either crushing a leaf and smelling it or just picking one and grinding it up with your mandibles

• Other

• Large-grain or coarse cane sugar
  
• Chilled soda water
  
• Ice
  

Once you've gone on the magical King's Quest to get all this stuff the rest of the procedure is going to seem like easy mode. Now all you have to do for each drink is...

1. Wash everything so you're not making Guacalajitos
2. Cut up four of your weird little limes - three into a total of twelve wedges and the fourth into visually appealing 1/8" circular cross section slivers
   
3. Key limes unfortunately have seeds so you'll have to spend a minute CSI-ing them out with forceps or whatever
4. Pick a nice handful of mint leaves from the stems and don't worry about overdoing it
5. Throw the three wedged limes and your mint into a cocktail shaker with a shot of the syrup you'd better have mixed earlier and smash them up as hard as possible to get all the juice free (aka muddle)
6. Add however much rum you feel comfortable with and keep in mind that there are a lot of pungent and delicious natural juices and oils in here that are going to hide almost any strong alcohol taste
   
7. Crack enough ice to overfill your glass, throw it in the shaker, and shake it up! This part helps distribute the mint leaves throughout the glass and not leave just one smashed layer of plant matter at the bottom of the drink
8. Dip the rim of the serving glass in water and then in the coarse sugar, which should stick to the rim and stay there
   
9. Pour the mix (do not strain) into the glass leaving at least 1/4 of the glass with no liquid
10. Top off with the soda water and stir slightly
11. Garnish with your key lime slivers and maybe a mint sprig

Not that it needs to be said after you've done all this hard labor, but, ENJOY!