Ernest Hemingway’s mojito choice debunked by students: ‘Extra fantasy than actuality’

As Ernest Hemingway’s birthday rolls round every July, Florida bars from Key West to Miami Beach shake mojitos in tribute to the Nobel Prize-winning writer. But Hemingway students say one of many author’s most enduring cocktail legends might be simply that — a legend.

“His connection to the mojito is probably more myth than reality,” stated Mark Ott, a Hemingway scholar who has edited the “Teaching Hemingway” guide collection and served as a consulting editor on Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s “Hemingway” documentary. “There’s not much of a record of him drinking mojitos.”

The fantasy is commonly traced to Havana, Cuba’s famed La Bodeguita del Medio, the place a handwritten inscription attributed to Hemingway proclaims, “My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita.”

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But historians have lengthy questioned each the authenticity of the signature and whether or not the restaurant even operated in its present type throughout a lot of Hemingway’s time in Cuba, the place he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” — which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953.

Still, the inscription has turn out to be a staple of tourism and cocktail tradition.

By distinction, Hemingway’s affection for daiquiris is well-documented. Ott stated the writer was an everyday at El Floridita in Havana, the place bartenders developed what grew to become often called the Papa Doble, a variation of the daiquiri made with further rum and no added sugar.

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“The daiquiri is Hemingway,” agreed Frank Gonzalez, company beverage director for Havana 1957, a South Florida restaurant group recognized for its Cuban cocktails.

Gonzalez stated Hemingway probably loved each mojitos and daiquiris throughout his years in Cuba however that his ingesting habits modified over time.

“He became diabetic, so he had to avoid drinks or cocktails with sugar,” Gonzalez advised Fox News Digital.

Reporting over time has equally revealed that whereas Hemingway virtually definitely visited La Bodeguita del Medio, the proof linking him to mojitos is skinny. 

Contemporary accounts, letters and biographies way more steadily place a daiquiri, beer, wine or scotch in his hand than Cuba’s mint-and-lime cocktail.

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For Ott, the historic report speaks for itself.

“There’s literally thousands of photographs of Hemingway,” he advised Fox News Digital. “I have never seen one where he actually has a mojito in his hand. … You’ll see lots of photos with him and beer bottles in his hands, for example, or mixing up martinis and things like that, but never with minty leaves floating on the top of a glass.”

One drink Hemingway did favor, Ott stated, was scotch.

“He certainly liked his scotch,” Ott stated. “There’s no question about that.”

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That does not imply mojitos deserve any much less appreciation, Gonzalez stated. 

He calls the basic mixture of white rum, recent lime juice, mint, sugar and soda water considered one of Cuba’s most enduring cocktails — so long as it is made with recent elements and a delicate muddle.

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Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899. 

He died on July 2, 1961, at age 61.