Do you find yourself so busy and stressed that you can't take the 3 minutes it usually takes to mix a cocktail and you want to find a way to knock that time down to one minute? Yeah, me either, but this could still be fun.

It's the One Minute Mojito from FineLiving.com. Seems to me the muddling would push things over that one minute mark, but maybe not. The recipe is after the jump, but you can also watch this video that shows you how to make it.

I saw a recipe in my Williams-Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook for a Blended Mojito and thought it would be a fantastic way to say "Hasta luego!" to the summer (or "Bienvenidos!" to an Indian Summer). Blended with ice, it works as a refresher. However, it's a mojito.

For as long as I could, I tried to stay away from the mojito craze that swept bars and cocktail parties across the country for the last few years. Part of the reason is that I consider myself "allergic" to anything too trendy, and if you weren't drinking a mojito, who are you? Well, you should all know by now that mojitos are soooo 2006. In fact, if you're caught drinking a mojito, you'll be ridiculed for having been living under an overturned martini glass for the last two years. With the popularity of mojitos gone, I am now starting to enjoy the drink.

It's funny how we're posting all these summer stories when the season doesn't "offically" begin for another two weeks. But we all know that summer really began on Memorial Day.

Food Network has their list for the Top 10 Summer Cocktails. None of the choices are really surprising, though I don't see how sangria is listed at #2, ahead of Gin & Tonic, Pina Colada, and Long Island Iced Tea. And is a Martini really a top summer drink? I think it's probably a big drink in general all year round, but I think that I would have put another drink in that slot before a Martini.

The site also has links to the recipes for each drink.

Not that I would ever turn down a real mojito, but if for some reason I had to eat a dessert instead of drinking a cocktail, I'd love this Mojito Cupcake, from food blog Vegan Yum Yum. The recipe in on the blog post, but as a summary, the cake is a modified version of the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Soymilk was infused with traditional mojito flavors, mint and lime juice, rum and lime zest were added to the batter, and the frosting wass flavored with dark rum. The natural garnish is, of course, a wedge of lime (though a sprig of mint would be pretty, too!)

It seems cigars aren't the only luxury Cuban product that have been all but unavailable in the States. Until recently one couldn't get Havana Club rum in the U.S. Now Bacardi is relaunching the storied spirit as a premium brand.

Havana Club got its start in the thirties and was exported to the U.S. and elsewhere until Castro took over Cuba in 1960. At that time, the government took possession of the plant and began to manufacture the spirit. But Castro lacked the recipe to produce the true Havana Club.

Ramon Arechabala, whose family first created the rum, is quoted in The Miami Herald as calling the government's version "undrinkable." It was widely exported elsewhere, but unavailable in the U.S.

While I'm fascinated with the international trademark case that cleared the path for Bacardi, I can't stop thinking of mojitos for some reason.

Sure, on any normal day, $35 for a bottle of rum may sound like a lot compared to what you would pay for say...generic "RUM" at the market, but $35 for Bambu White Rum is a steal compared to what your water and power bill will be after running your air conditioning for 30 days straight on full-blast.

Bambu is a triple-distilled product launched in the US last year. It is made to taste like traditional rum, yet for how white and light it is, it is more like vodka. To stay cool on this Monday's Happy Hour, muddle a couple of limes that that have been cut into wedges, a few mint leaves and a teaspoon of granulated sugar. Add ice, 2 oz. of Bambu Rum, and top the whole thing off with soda to make it sparkle.

$35 a bottle split over how many cocktails to keep you cool? Much cheaper than A/C.

Forget about lousy tomato juice and those miniature bottles of bad wine you had on your last airline flight. Bad beverages and boring cocktails are a thing of the past, or at least they are on Delta Airlines. In an attempt to spruce up their in-flight offerings, the airline has gone the way of so many restaurants and bars by introducing a signature cocktail.

The drink? The "Mile-high Mojitos." (They're great. Trust me, I had about three of them on my flight from Maine to Ohio last week. Of course, the only reason I know about these cocktails to begin with is because I was mysteriously upgraded for free. My lucky day apparently.)

And even though the Mojito wasn't prepared to my exacting specifications, with huge twigs of fresh mint, like they do at my favorite local bar, it was a pretty great cocktail. The mix contained the appropriate level of sweet and tart, cool and limey. So, next time you are flying Delta, by all means, order one. What else are you going to do? Read SkyMall magazine?

Today's Miami Herald features a story about what may soon be the peak of the mojito's popularity. The muddled mix of lime, mint, rum, sugar and soda was recently added to the menus at TGI Friday's and it'll soon show up in the new Miami Vice, the Herald reports. A huge marketing push from Bacardi is partially to thank. Sadly, another sign of the mojito's rise to stardom is the increase in pre-made mojito mixes. It seems to me that these sort of defeat the purpose of the drink, as the on-the-spot blending of its fresh ingredients are really what makes it so refreshing. Those of you already passing up mojitos for caipirinhas can give yourselves a pat on the back though, as the Herald reports that the similar Brazilian cocktail will be the next big thing. Somewhere, at a TGI Friday's, someone is probably ordering a mo-gee-to right now...

Muddle is a word with two meanings when it comes to food/drink preparation, which makes it a little confusing when you first hear it used. There is a tool used by bartenders, and anyone else who really likes to make drinks, called a muddler. It is a rod with a flattened end, like the one shown in the picture. It is used to crush ingredients together, usually at the bottom of a glass, which is a process known as muddling.

Most often, the drinks that are prepared with a muddle are those that involve herbs and citrus, because crushing them together with sugar releases their natural oils brings out their flavors of the ingredients more strongly. For example, a mint julep usually has mint and sugar muddled together at the bottom of the glass before adding the other ingredients. In a mojito, lime is added to the mint and sugar mixture, too.