Raspberry Mojito

The other night, I wanted to surprise my husband with a really fun drink.  Usually, he's the one who likes to experiment with different blender drinks, like pina coladas, etc, and, let's just say, I'm not a great bartender.  (My specialty is opening a bottle of wine.  Ta-da!!)  So, I thought part of the surprise would be that I would make a really fantastic drink that he'd love.  He already loves mojitos and it had been a long time since we made those, so I did a bit of research.  I looked through four or five raspberry mojito recipes, tried a couple and ended up combining them.  This is what I ended up with:

Take a bowl or something with a flat surface (I used a large coffee mug) and mash together two leaves of mint (NOT chopped up or torn into small pieces), six or seven fresh red raspberries, about 1 tsp. of lime juice and about 1/2 tsp. of sugar.  Once they are all mashed together, pour the mixture into your drinking glass.  Add ice (I used cubed ice but my husband usually uses crushed).  Over the ice, add two ounces white rum and about four ounces of tonic water (I used diet tonic water).  Stir a bit with a straw and you've got yourself one yummy summer drink.

Here's a not-very-fancy picture of what the end product looks like, cheap grocery store straw and all!

Tips:

*I only put about three ice cubes in each drink because I didn't want it to water-down while I was drinking it.  It might sound like a strong drink because it has just over a shot of rum in it, but honestly, the sweetness of the sugar and the flavor of the mint make you not notice the rum one bit.

*I'm kind of weird because I really love crushed up raspberries.  If you drink this through a straw, the raspberry seeds are going to be the first thing you suck up.  SO, if you don't want that, I would strain the "mashed up mixture" before you pour it into your drinking glass and just add a few whole raspberries for looks at the end.

*During the first attempt at making this drink, I tore up the mint before I mashed it.  The flavor was outstanding but when I drank through my straw later, I not only got the raspberry seeds but also chunks of leaves.  By keeping the mint in it's whole-leaf form, you still get lots of mint flavor, without having to eat the mint leaves later.  Just my opinion.

This all probably sounds a little novice to you drink-mixers out there, but as I warned you, I'm no bartender!!  :)