The mojito is one of the most famous rum-based highballs. Traditionally, a mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, soda water, and mint. Its combination of sweetness, citrus, and herbaceous mint flavors is intended to complement the rum, and has made the mojito a popular summer drink.

White rum is light-bodied and has a sweet taste. This makes it a perfect choice for many classic rum cocktails, such as Mojito, Pina Colada, or Daiquiri.

Also known as "silver" or "light" rum, white rum is usually aged for about a year, but even up to a few years. It is aged in stainless steel tanks or plain oak casks, which lend it a light blonde colour and is made from sugarcane juice or molasses.

Havana, Cuba, is the birthplace of the mojito, although its exact origin is the subject of debate. It was known that the local South American Indians had remedies for various tropical illnesses, so a small boarding party went ashore on Cuba and came back with ingredients for an effective medicine. The ingredients were "aguardiente de caña" (translated as "burning water", a crude form of rum made from sugar cane) mixed with local tropical ingredients: lime, sugarcane juice, and mint. Lime juice on its own would have significantly prevented scurvy and dysentery.

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