Mo-HE-to?
Muddle some mint leaves in the bottom of a glass. Add lime juice, sugar and rum before topping with soda water. Optional: a dash of homosexuality.
There’s a surprising lack of academic attention paid to the sexual orientations we associate with particular drinks, perhaps because academics have better things to do (like, going for a drink?).
That doesn’t stop magazines doing their best to plug the gaps. With their tongue-firmly-in-cheek, Queerty’s Brief History of the Gay Cocktail said it like it is:
“If there are two things gays like to be at the forefront of, it’s trends and liquor. Combine the two and you have the gay obsession with what cocktail is in and which isn’t.”
It’s a truism for many aspects of culture - especially fashion and music - that it’s we gays who exert a strong influence over what’s going to be The Next Big Thing. The same goes for cocktails.
In their rundown of cocktail culture through the decades, Queerty settle on 2000 as the year the Mojito became THE cocktail for gays to be seen with. Two years later, it featured prominently in Die Another Day. It takes a while for cool gay stuff to percolate down to the heteros. By the time it’s made it into Bond, you can guarantee it’s well diffused across the culture as a whole. (For instance, it took until 1979 for Bond to go disco: Moonraker was released just days after the genre is said to have ‘died’)
According to Time Out, Bond ordering a Mojito is the best thing about Die Another Day. That might be going a bit far but there’s something to be said for Pierce Brosnan’s er… unique pronunciation.
Previously a drink Bond wouldn’t have been seen dead imbibing, he is shown experiencing the rejuvenating effects of the summery concoction in Cuba (or, more accurately, a Spanish beach posing as Cuba).
Murky origins
The Mojito is probably Cuban in origin, although even this is disputed. It may have been invented by Sir Francis Drake, a historical British hero in the Bondian mode if ever there was one.
Cocktail histories are always a murky mix of apocryphal tales, competing claims and outright lies. It’s not even certain, for instance, that the most well known Mojito fan of them all (besides James Bond and Francis Drake), even drank one. While it is quite likely that Ernest Hemingway did enjoy a Mojito, it’s a myth: there is simply no evidence to say either way.
Nevertheless, the Hemingway-Mojito association seems unbreakable, which is surprising considering Hemingway’s reputation as a ‘man’s man’ who prided himself on drinking most people under the table. Like the stronger drinks he claimed to have admired most (the Martini was his favorite), Hemingway’s prose is frequently described as, ‘manly’ and ‘muscular’ because of its apparent directness (and lack of flowery adjectives). The similarities with Fleming, whose journalistic training instilled in him a similar style, are striking. However, just like Fleming, several of Hemingway’s best rendered female characters have ‘boyish’ appearances. Like Fleming, Hemingway writes from both female and male points of view at a time when this was less common. And although Hemingway sometimes decries homosexuality, this doesn’t stop him writing about it. Hemingway’s recent biographer, Mary V. Dearborn concluded that although he didn’t define himself as gay, “He was undoubtedly queer” and his sexual insecurities affected him throughout life, especially towards the end. Hemingway curated his public image carefully, downplaying anything that didn’t fit with a heterosexual masculine ideal. Perhaps that’s why he never mentions the Mojito in his writing, despite waxing lyrical about Martinis, Daiquiris and other potent cocktails.
All of this is stereotypical nonsense of course. There’s no such thing as a ‘gay cocktail’ and, the relative lack of strength and sweetness of the Mojito aside, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly gay about it. But stereotypes persist and sometimes it can be comforting to live up to them. Even gay publications play up to it, identifying the drinks you should order to conform to the different gay types: twinks, bears, beefcakes, etc. And it’s not just alcoholic beverages. A 2019 GQ article amusingly asked ‘Why is iced coffee so gay?’ Why indeed!
Much as we might dispute it academically, the drink you order DOES say something about you socially. How many straight men in a bar would feel comfortable ordering a white wine spritzer? (The ubiquitous Aperol Spritz has made this a more viable option for some)
from Urban Dictionary
Not his first time?
Although Bond is not that well acquainted with rum compared with gin or vodka, let’s not forget Daniel Craig orders a rum (Mount Gay brand) and soda in Casino Royale, which is a Mojito minus the mint and lime juice.
And it’s a Kentuckian cousin of the Mojito, the Mint Julep, which Sean Connery drinks in Goldfinger. The Julep eschews the lime and replaces the bourbon with rum, but it’s the same sort of idea. And if you were in the mood to be outrageously stereotypical for a moment, you could say that both the Mojito and the Julep are pretty gay because they both involve muddling around in bottoms. (Sorry/not sorry)
