A Bartender's Life Viva Cuba
An insight into the life of Mojo cocktail man Josef Wyczynski
A Bartender's Life: Viva Cuba
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This month I’m lucky enough to be writing from rum and sun soaked Cuba. The fact that I’m writing from here is less about wanting to show off and more a testament to my awesome ability to procrastinate. I was going to get a little piece done before we left about how quiet January gets for bars (I’m actually able to take two weeks off!) but this fell by the way-side as I dreamed of dangerously affordable rum and worked on perfecting my truly terrible Latin-American accent.
As has happened on most of my travels, I’ve been exploring the drinking culture of this amazing Caribbean island. It’s got its fair share of history and social upheaval but, in my mind, that just adds to the rich tapestry surrounding the booze.
Rum and beer are the main things here, with most bars stocking a couple of beers and only the spirits needed to make classic rum cocktails and little else. Everything here is much more relaxed and stripped down than anywhere else I’ve been.
All beers are lagers and because a few popular classic cocktails can trace an early heritage back here, the cocktails tend to be much less complex than back home. While British and American bartenders have been perfecting recipes and methods, Cuban bartenders have carried on doing things the way they’ve been doing them for decades.
Mojitos are thrown together simply and quickly and most of the other drinks are tossed into a blender with ice, then doled out. If your Spanish is good enough, you can order a mojito the way we’re used to them – leaves picked from the stalk, lime wedges dropped in and crushed ice rather than cubes, but the bartender will look at you like you’ve asked for a beer in a shoe (it’s a little known fact that leather shoes add some much needed depth to less full flavoured beers).
It’s great to be able to see how far these cocktails have come in the decades since they were first popularised and equally as good to experience them in their more relaxed incarnations. Obviously as the UK’s Best Bar and Best Goodtime Bar we are still mixing well.
Having said that, it’s gonna be freekin’ awesome to get a Manhattan in me when we get home.
Josef Wyczynskiis a bartender at Mojo,18 Merrion Street, LS1 6PQ, 0113 244 6387, www.mojobar.co.uk
Posted on Monday 23rd January 2012
Mojo
18 Merrion Street, Leeds, LS1 6PQ
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