Ginger Mojitos

We're back in Baltimore now, after a great few days at Keuka Lake and...oh, what?

You want to know what's in that Schlitz pitcher? Well, OK then.

First, let's just look at how great that pitcher is. Alicia found it deep in a cabinet

at the lake house and we had to use it for our fancy cocktail.

As for the cocktail itself, I started with this Chowhound recipe for a pitcher full of ginger mojitos.

I squeezed all the limes and made the simple syrup before arriving at the lake,

so all I had to do there was mix together the base, rum and sparkling water.

As it turned out, we thought the original recipe was a little tart,

so we added a little squirt of simple syrup.

Here's our version of the recipe:

Ginger Mojitos

(makes about 12 drinks)

Ingredients

• 2 cups granulated sugar (divided)
• 2 cups water (divided)
• 1 4-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated using a box grater
• 2 cups tightly packed mint leaves
• 1 750-mL bottle white rum
• Juice of 18 medium limes
• Ice
• Sparkling water

1. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water and the ginger to a boil over high heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved (about 5 minutes).

2. Remove the syrup from the heat and add the mint leaves. Stir and let cool, with the mint and ginger steeping, until cool (about 1 hour).

3. Make another batch of simple syrup, but plain this time, by combining 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water, boiling over high heat until the sugar is dissolved (while stirring), then cooling.

4. Squeeze the juice from the limes and set aside.

5. Using a fine-mesh strainer, strain all the solids from the syrup. Place in a container for storage, or a pitcher for mixing.

6. Combine the lime juice and syrup.

7. When you're ready to to make the drink itself, combine the juice/syrup mixer with the whole bottle of rum. Mix until blended.

8. To make one drink, fill a pint glass with ice, then fill about halfway with the mojito base. Top with three teaspoons of the plain simple syrup and fill the rest of the glass with sparkling water.

9. Combine by pouring from one glass to another (gently - you don't want the sparkling water to bubble over).

10. Enjoy! But enjoy carefully. As we discovered on Friday, turns out these are deceptively boozy. They are delicious...but after two I was more than a little loopy. In a good way, but still.