Preparation
- Shake the rum, mint, lime juice, syrup, and bitters hard with ice. Hold back the sparkling wine.
- Double strain through a Hawthorne strainer and a fine strainer into a chilled cocktail glass.
- Top up with cold sparkling wine.
- Finish with a garnish: a mint sprig.
What does it taste like?
First comes the carbonation, then the mint. Both feel fresh and light. Behind that you taste the lime, clearly tart, and the simple syrup, which catches a good deal of that acidity. The aged rum brings caramel and wood, while the bitters lay a spicy, almost clove-like note over the top. With 45 milliliters of rum and just 60 milliliters of sparkling wine, the drink is stronger than it feels. Since it's served without ice, it won't be further diluted by melting ice, though it will warm up over time.
When does it work best?
The Old Cuban is great for toasting, before a meal, or to kick off an evening. It looks festive but doesn't taste like a dessert. It's pleasant for beginners, since the mint and carbonation make the alcohol feel soft. That's exactly the trap: it goes down fast. If you like a Mojito but want something a bit more grown-up, this is the one.
What matters
Double strain the drink, meaning through the Hawthorne strainer and then again through a fine tea strainer. Otherwise, torn mint leaves float in the glass and get stuck in your teeth. Add the sparkling wine only once it's in the glass, never into the shaker. Use a dry one: a sweet prosecco adds to the 30 milliliters of syrup already there and makes the drink cloying.
Where the drink comes from
Audrey Saunders created the Old Cuban in New York in the early 2000s. She took the pattern of a mint-rum sour and topped it with sparkling wine. Aged rum and Angostura give the drink more depth than a light rum ever could. The name is a bit misleading. There's nothing old about this drink, and it's not based on some traditional Cuban recipe either. It's a modern bar cocktail that reassembles familiar building blocks in a new way. That's exactly why it tastes both familiar and different at once.