Mojitos and Spring

My neighbor Pete and I were making mojitos the other day to celebrate the coming spring (and fresh mint at the winter farmer's market). Pete and I disagree a bit on the making of the yummy rum drinks. I like to have full mint springs, a bit crushed, floating around in my drink. It should look like you dipped your glass into a pretty pond and added ice. Pete likes to crush the mint into an almost paste making the drinks a shocking all over green. Either way they are tasty.

Since making these drinks properly takes a little bit of time, and we are planning a party where we would like to serve them, we wondered if we could infuse the rum with mint ahead of time and then just garnish the drinks with a sprig or two.
Since we disagree on the mint crushing, we have tried both ways in our infusions.

These bottles have been sitting for almost a week now and will be strained tonight and tested by our panel of experts. We'll be watching Sweeney Todd from Netflix, so it will be an evening of bloody, musical, rummy, mintyness with a little Johnny Depp thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of spring and time with friends, I had lunch with Melissa yesterday at the Green Bean. We sat OUTSIDE. It was in the 70s and they have set up two small tables just outside the door. I think that if I lived somewhere in the South where the seasons are not so extreme I would not value so much that first really warm day where you can sit outside, without a coat on, and enjoy a BLT (with Avocado), an iced coffee and good conversation.

Today is cooler and rainy, but there are more signs of spring in the yard.
My apologies to my family members in Vermont (where yesterday my dad shoveled 3 feet of snow off the deck in a patch big enough for mom to sit in a chair in the sun) and in Maine (where they may not see bare ground until sometime in July from the sounds of things).
Just in time for spring I finished this wool and alpaca sweater....