Teapot Mojitos

In celebration of lifelong friendships.

This week we’re drinking not eating - in celebration of “The Goldens” - my fabulous University housemates from Brum. Here’s four of the six of us when we met up last weekend at the brilliant Alhampton Arms in Somerset.

And here’s the younger version of all of us, in Kings Heath (we were there trailblazing well before Jo Lycett), in 1994, the year after we all met as freshers in Mason Hall…

Teapot mojitos were born about a decade ago when we went to Norfolk for a girls weekend in a cottage, I think for one of our 40th birthdays. It turned out to be more of a shack than a lovely cottage, with flea-infested scratchy bunk beds. To get there, a man rowed you over in a boat and then you had to get out for the last bit and wade through the water with your rucksack over your head like a squaddie. I was unable to use my hair straighteners as the shack didn’t have electricity. It also fell short on kitchen and cocktail making equipment, hence on the evening we arrived, we used an old teapot to make our mojitos. By candlelight.

So this Saturday evening, we did the same, only with a nicer teapot and at my house which has electricity and is not accessed via boat.

For cracking mojitos you will need lashings of fresh mint and fresh limes, sugar syrup, white rum soda water and tons of ice. Muddle the mint, generous amount of lime juice and sugar syrup together, add the rum and ice, top with soda. Absolutely no idea on the quantities, just keep adding stuff until it looks/feels/tastes about right. We finished a whole bottle of Bacardi in about three minutes and some of us (ok, me) were so hungover on Sunday that all we could do was mindlessly sit and watch cricket, so the quantities may have gone a bit awol on this occasion.

So this weekend, pour yourself a mojito, put the world to rights and raise a glass to the power of lifelong female friendships. Cheers to the Goldens x