Mojito local tropical ingredients: lime, sugarcane juice, and mint. Lime juice on its own would have significantly prevented scurvy and dysentery, and tafia/rum was soon added as it became widely available to the British (ca. 1650). Mint, lime and sugar were also helpful in hiding the harsh taste of this spirit. While this drink was not called a Mojito at this time, it was the original combination of these ingredients. Some historians contend that African slaves who worked in the Cuban sugar cane fields during the 19th century were instrumental in the cocktail's origin. Guarapo, the sugar cane juice often used
Rum Swizzle Rum Swizzles originated on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts. American naturalist and writer Frederick Albion Ober noted in 1920 that the great drink of the Barbados ice houses was the swizzle, a combination of liquors, sugar, and ice whisked to a froth by a rapidly revolved "swizzle-stick" made from the stem of a native plant, perhaps "Quararibea turbinata" (the "swizzlestick tree") or an allspice bush. The etymology of the word "swizzle" is unknown, but it may derive from a similar beverage known as switchel. Rum Swizzles were the drink of choice at what was purportedly the world's first cocktail