San Diego’s San Diego’s Havana 1920 celebrates National Mojito Day with a “Havana Nights” party that includes $5 mojitos, half-priced pitchers of the cocktail and live music.
National Mojito Day is July 11, and this Gaslamp Quarter bar and restaurant also has complimentary, tray-passed Cuban bocaditos and small bites from 4-7 p.m, with live music starting at 7 p.m.
Havana 1920’s house mojitos are made with Havana Club añejo blanco rum, lime juice, Cuban mint, sugarcane juice, sugarcane syrup and club soda. Havana Nights is a free event tho it is recommended to register in advance here.
The venue’s brightly-colored décor includes Cuban-style chairs, Cuban cigar boxes and a machine making fresh-pressed sugarcane juice for cocktails. The bar also boasts an impressive collection of more than 150 rums, including French-style Rhum Agricole, classic British Navy Pusser’s rum and the hard-to-find Appleton Estate Joy.
History Of The Mojito, Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Drink
The mojito is a Cuban cocktail that is said to have been created at a bar on La Bodeguita del Medio, an island in Cuba.
Supposedly, it actually dates back to 1586 when served by Sir Francs Drake served it to his crew as a cure for scurvy and dysentery.
It became popular when Sloppy Joes Havana Bar, a historic bar in Cuba, started serving them in the 1930s. Originally there were two versions, one with rum and one with gin. Rum eventually won out eventually – hey, it’s Cuba, after all – and the bar had its own rum. The mojito was supposedly Ernest Hemingway’s favorite drink.
Sloppy Joe’s Havana Bar, by the way, reopened in 2013 after being closed for 48 years. The Los Angeles Times once called it “one of the most famous bars in the world” with “almost the status of a shrine.”
Havana 1920 hasn’t exactly earned that lofty status but it is a place in San Diego where you can go to get a feel for old Cuba and have mojitos and other rum cocktails.