Eternally in love with Cuba since his first visit -at the end of the twenties of the last century- Ernest Hemingway coined a phrase that still remains in the popular phraseology: “My Mojito in the Bodeguita”. The writer was referring to the most famous of Cuban cocktails and the expertise of the bartenders who prepared it in this Havana restaurant-bar. And what did the Mojito have to seduce the Nobel Prize? Well, almost everything: exoticism, freshness, a touch of glamor and a lot of authenticity. Since then, the fame of the drink has grown by leaps and bounds, and its basic recipe or its more than one hundred variants are served around the world.
However, it cannot be denied that the true Mojito experience is only possible in this Caribbean land. It’s not just about preparing and drinking it: you need the warm climate, the bright sun, the music … the atmosphere of the island. In Meliá hotels you have the opportunity to savor it in its classic version or in a newer one, baptized with a name that will tell you exactly about its peculiarity. Welcome to the world of the Ecomojito!
Famous for several years in the Paradisus Río de Oro hotel (Holguín province), the Ecomojito today joins the profusion of recipes that, under the Nativa brand, seek to bring our guests the purest Cuban gastronomy. The proposal maintains among its ingredients lemon juice and mineral water; It uses cane sugar or syrup to suit the taster and substitutes the traditional white rum for a luxury vintage: Santiago de Cuba, named as the hottest land in the Caribbean and equally delicious.
That’s all? you will ask yourself. Well no! The main element is missing, the one that turns the Mojito –and the Ecomojito- into a drink of gods: peppermint, a simple plant similar to mint and whose leaves are macerated in the mixture to provide a taste at the same time fresh, bitter and acid. Very important! It must be the Cuban peppermint, the botanicals’ Mentha spicata, very green and fresh. This is precisely how it is harvested very close to our hotels, in totally organic environments free of polluting substances. Also, honoring the name Ecomojito, we opted to present it to you in containers that admit various uses, and we changed the plastic straws for the best possible alternative: those made with bamboo stems, biodegradable, with a guarantee of sustainable cultivation and that do not leave residues when discarded. That is the essence of Nativa: rescue of traditions, search for new trends and the deserved respect for the environment.
And you already have before you the Ecomojito, which has gone from being the main protagonist in the afternoons of a Holguin hotel, to occupying a place of honor in the Nativa gastronomic brand. Rephrasing Hemingway’s phrase, we can now say: “My Mojito at the Bodeguita, my Ecomojito at Meliá Cuba”. Let’s have a toast now for your next return. Cheers!
