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Pear-jito

(Who Would Have Thought.)

My wife Casey and our friend Stephen spent an afternoon canning pears in simple syrup, looked at the pot of pear-flavored sugar water they had going, and asked me to make a drink out of it. This is what came back. First sip earned a "who would have thought it would work?" from the person who wasn't holding a paring knife. Nobody thought. But it works. This drink is dangerous. Heavy on the alcohol and you can barely taste it. Pear in cocktails is criminally underused — everybody reaches for lime and lemon and orange, occasionally grapefruit, then stops. Pear is subtle, floral, and pairs shockingly well with white rum. Read the callouts before your third round. Especially the first one.

Prep: 5 min Cook: None (it's a drink) Makes: 1 tall glass Easy (Pace Yourself)
Tall glass of Pear-jito with pear chunks, ice, and a sprig of fresh mint
The Pear-jito — tastes like a pear spritzer, drinks like a real cocktail. Who would have thought.

Ingredients

For one tall 10-12 oz glass. Scale up per drinker; do not scale up per drinker and then also make a pitcher — see the danger callout.

Instructions

  1. Muddle the mint (optional but recommended). Drop 2-3 mint leaves in the bottom of the glass and give them a light muddle with a spoon or a proper muddler — you're bruising them to release the oils, not making pesto. Over-muddled mint tastes like grass clippings. If muddling makes you nervous, skip it and use the sprig as a top garnish. The drink still works.
  2. Add the pear. Drop 3-4 chunks of canned pear into the bottom of the glass. They're flavor, they're garnish, they're what you eat with a spoon after you finish.
  3. Fill with ice. Don't be shy. All the way. Rocks glasses full of half-melted ice-water are the enemy of a cocktail that takes ninety seconds to assemble.
  4. Add the liquids. 1.5 oz rum, 1.5 oz pear simple syrup, 2 Tbsp fresh pear juice, and 2-3 dashes of fresh lime juice. Dashes. Read the lime callout.
  5. Stir gently to combine. Do not shake. This is not a martini; you don't need to bruise it, and you don't need more dilution than the ice is already giving you.
  6. Garnish and drink slowly. A sprig of fresh mint on top. Now go read the danger callout before you decide to make another one.

This Drink Is Dangerous.

"This drink is dangerous. Heavy on the alcohol and you can barely taste it." The pear simple syrup and the pear juice hide the rum so thoroughly that this glass goes down like a spritzer. Then a second one. Then you stand up and understand what you did. Rum is 40% ABV. There's 1.5 oz of it in a small glass, wearing a fruit costume. This is a real cocktail behind a very convincing fruity mask. Pace yourself, especially if you're making rounds. Nobody has ever said "wow, that first Pear-jito really hit me" while making the third.

The Lime Does A Lot of Work.

"That small amount of lime does a lot of work." Two or three dashes. Not a wedge. Not a squeeze. Not a jigger. Dashes. In a drink this sweet, the lime is the only thing keeping it from tasting like pear syrup on the rocks — that tiny hit of acid balances the whole glass, and without it the drink is flat and cloying. Past three dashes, though, you're drinking pear-flavored limeade with rum in it. The dash amount matters. Do the dash.

On the Pear Simple Syrup.

This drink was invented off a canning session — my wife Casey and our friend Stephen were putting up jars of pears in simple syrup and needed something to do with the leftover syrup. The pear-infused syrup is part of the canning itself: 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar (a "thin" simple syrup — note that most simple syrup recipes go 1:1, so this is lighter on purpose to let the pear come through), with peeled pear pieces added to the pot and boiled until the pears softened and the syrup took on their flavor. The pears go into jars with the syrup for canning; the extras run through a juicer for the straight pear juice this drink uses.

No canning batch lying around? Shortcut: start from our Simple Syrup recipe but swap to a 2:1 water-to-sugar ratio, then boil 1-2 ripe peeled pears (cored, chopped) in it for 15-20 minutes. Strain. That's pear simple syrup. Save the boiled pears — they go in the drink AND they're the snack for whoever's making the cocktails.

The "Who Would Have Thought" Bit.

Pear in cocktails is underused for no good reason. Everybody reaches for lime, lemon, orange, and if they're feeling adventurous, grapefruit. Pear is subtle, floral, and pairs shockingly well with white rum. This wasn't engineered from a cocktail book. It got invented on a whim off a canning session by a wife and a friend who wanted somebody to make them a drink from the syrup they had lying around. The first sip earned an actual "who would have thought" from the person not holding a paring knife. Answer: nobody thought. But it works. Now it's on the site.

The Mojito Family.

This is the fourth mojito on the site. Its siblings: Watermelon Mojito, Mango Jalapeño Mojito, Cucumber Jalapeño Mojito. Same base template — rum, sweet, lime, mint — different fruit in the fruit slot. Rotate through them across a summer and nobody at the party will notice you're using the same four bottles.

Stuff You'll Need

A tall 10-12 oz glass. A muddler or the back of a wooden spoon (only if you're muddling the mint — skip it and you don't need one). A jigger or measuring spoons. Ice. Canned pears in pear-infused simple syrup — ideally from your own canning batch; if not, the shortcut above. And a juicer, or someone patient with a fine mesh strainer, to get the fresh pear juice.