Crack Open A Guava For Staggeringly Refreshing Mojitos

The mojito might just be the most perfect summer drink. Few recipes are more refreshing than the mixture of lime, mint, and club soda, topped off with rum and (ideally) sugar cane juice. Try sipping one in the shade or in a pool while escaping from the heat of the summer sun and feel the magic happen. Variations on the mojito are aplenty, and additional ingredients run the gamut from watermelon to strawberry. The ultimate spin, however, is the tropical fruit known as guava.

Guava is native to Latin America and the Caribbean, although India is the top guava grower in today's age. Despite its ubiquitousness in tropical South and Central America, guavas haven't caught on in North America as strongly as other tropical fruits like pineapples, mangoes, and papayas. Perhaps it's because of import costs, or perhaps it's because it looks complicated to eat (it's not) — but the reason why it's not more popular stateside (outside of South Florida, where guava pastries are common) is a mystery. Anyone who has tried biting into guava knows how delicious it is, but Americans are probably more familiar with the fruit through candy, beer, or something else featuring its flavor.

The trickiest part of enjoying guava is probably getting the harvesting time just right, since unripened guava can taste quite tart. In grocery stores, guava more commonly appears in some form other than whole fruit, such as paste or juice, and is often sweetened to balance out the fruit's sour notes. A fully ripened guava, however, needs no added sugar. So if you can find a guava product with no added sweeteners, it's a bonus.

You can probably find guavas, or at least guava nectar juice, at your local Latin supermarket. These don't even have to be Latin-branded grocery brands; they're just usually in neighborhoods with a higher Latinx population. Otherwise, Asian markets like H Mart occasionally have them, and since the fruit is growing more popular in the American foodie world, you can see cartons of guava juice at higher-end shops like Whole Foods. When all else fails, you can probably find some guava juice online as well.

Once you have acquired your guava juice, it's time to make a guava mojito. Prep is almost exactly how you would make a regular mojito, except you add some guava nectar. That means that you first start off by muddling mint, lime juice, and sugar. The most classically authentic mojitos use juice squeezed fresh out of a sugar cane, but you can substitute this with simple syrup — which just requires boiling an even mixture of water and sugar.

Once the aromas have filled the glass, you can put some ice inside to help chill the drink. Rum comes next, so it immediately greets the flavors you've already muddled. Then comes the guava nectar (once the booze has settled in nicely). The club soda arrives last to give the drink a bubbly spark, and with a few sprigs of mint or classy lime rind to garnish, voila: you've just given your basic mojito a guava-tinged edge.