If you don’t know the name Kim Haasarud, and if you love cocktails, you are so missing out. Kim is founder of Liquid Architecture, a consulting firm that creates specialty cocktails for clients around the world. Clients like the Four Seasons Maui and Wyndham Worldwide Hotels. She seems to have a boundless imagination. Beyond consulting, she has written over a dozen of these 101 books. Here, the lovely mojito is reimagined time and time again.
Paging through this book, will you want to make all 101? Probably not. I put stickies on a mere 40 of the drinks and I am literally drinking my way through the book. Here are some of the ideas that have caught my attention:
Cucumber Cilantro
Watermelon Basil
San Vincente with Muddled Grapes and Basil
Pomegranate Mandarin
Concord Grape with Sage
Strawberry Basil Lemonade
Grapefruit Honey Lemonade
Beyond the basic mojito with its lime, lemons come into play. And different fruits are happily applied: those berries, grape, watermelons, and grapefruits. Expanding outside the pure mojito framework, Kim suggests cobblers — muddled fruit with sugar and spirits — and smashes — any base spirit muddled with lemon, mint and sugar. So, besides rum, cachaça and bourbon and pisco are elegantly employed. You soon realize that Kim’s recipes invite experimentation. If she suggests pisco, maybe you will prefer that cachaça.
Her suggestions take you down many pathways. That core mojito concept of lime and rum and sugar is never lost, but surely extended far beyond anything you might have imagined.
I’ve tried a dozen of these recipes and loved them all. You’ll see a couple of the ideas posted here, but this book, first published in 2011, is one you too will want to work your way through, one drink at a time.