Blue Huron for Lord Huron

John and Sharon honored us by asking for our help with Ben's wedding in one particular way: using Sharon's blue mojito recipe, produce the beverage in sufficient quantity and serve it to 150 potential takers at Ben and Sacha's wedding.

We were delighted to comply!

Cutting to the chase: Here's the wedding couple enjoying their "Blue Hurons":

The rest of the story:

The Test Recipe

Developing the recipe for large quantities involved multiple rounds of back-of-envelope calculations by both Sharon and me.

Our cottage neighbors were only too happy to test the initial recipe. We made some adjustments based on their feedback: More mint, less lime juice. We also upped the rum when we saw Ben's sign for the drink stand: "Try a Blue Huron - Strong as the Great Lakes!"

The Mint

The mint we used came mostly from our neighbors waterfront. It grows wild there, and I harvested it with abandon. As a result, we had enough for three big batches of minted simple syrup and a nice healthy sprig in every drink.

The quantity recipe for minted simple syrup:

Heat 16 cups water with 12 cups sugar till sugar is dissolved completely and mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat and stir in ~10 cups snipped mint branches (washed), stems and all. Allow to steep until mixture cools and mint loses its bright green color. Strain into containers, refrigerate thoroughly. This makes enough simple syrup for about four gallons of mojitos. I made three batches.

The Mix

Our plan was to combine the non-fizzy ingredients in ten one-gallon containers. The day before the wedding, we assembled all our containers and all our ingredients (well-chilled, even the rum and Blue Curacao), and began combining everything except the club soda, which we planned to add directly to the beverage dispensers to preserve the carbonation. Ken said the kitchen looked like a scene out of Breaking Bad. "I was working in the lab, late one night..."

Everything went into the garage fridge for an overnight cool down. Saturday afternoon, Ken loaded up the coolers and put them in the Subaru for the trip to the Hammond Bay Refuge Harbor, the site of the reception.  To save space in transport, Ken had consolidated the mix for ten gallons of mojitos into seven gallon jugs, so we did some quick calculations and came ready to mix the drinks in the two 5-gallon dispensers. Glitch: The dispensers provided by the caterer turned out to be 3-gallon, not 5-gallon. Ken made another quick mental calculation and determined the magic ratio was 2:1, booze/mix to club soda. No problem. We dropped off the coolers and headed up to the wedding.

The Fix

After the group wedding photo was taken, we scooted out to the car and drove down to the harbor.

The set up was in a windy spot outside the tent, and everything (even glasses) wanted to fly off the table. Ken to the rescue again: he figured out a sequence that kept the glasses on the table while I worked with the customers. The line grew quite quickly so we were kept very busy for a while!

Before long we were getting repeat customers, and they seemed quite happy. About halfway through my first Blue Huron, I figured out why: These puppies were STRONG. Ken noticed we seemed to have more club soda remaining that we should have. Another quick mental calculation: WHOOPS, we had mixed the first two rounds 4:1 (booze mix to club soda), not 2:1. We added more club soda to the next batches and no one was the wiser.

Photo Finish

The wedding guests went through all but about a gallon or two of the drinks before dinner. We converted the drink station to self-serve and joined the other guests inside the tent.

What a wonderful experience! We got to meet many more of the wedding guests than otherwise, and got more than a few of them pretty tipsy. Success!

If you've read this far down in the post, you've earned the right to the recipe. Bear in mind this is the quantity version developed for the event: for the original Sharon Emery mojito, you must court the source herself.

Sharon's Blue Huron Mojitos - makes one gallon; 16 8-oz. servings

32 ounces of rum
32 ounces of minted simple syrup
16 ounces (one bottle) of Key West Lime Juice
4 ounces of Blue Curacao
44 ounces club soda