Sweet Stick : From Mojito to pork chops, sugar cane is the secret.

The classic Cuban rum drink mojito becomes something special when Xiomara Ardolina makes it. Ardolina feeds lengths of sugar cane into a gleaming machine behind the bar at Xiomara, her nuevo Latino restaurant in Old Pasadena. Out comes a buttery sweet juice, which she adds to rum, lime and mint in a tall glass.

Simple, yes. But it took months of work, a lot of expense and more than a few headaches for Ardolina to be able to serve this drink.

The problem is getting sugar cane. For one thing, California is not cane country. Only sugar beets are grown commercially here. What cane there is comes from random small plots, and it’s only in peak condition for part of the year. During the summer, just when you’d like a tall, cool drink, California is caneless.

Once Ardolina tried to preserve $1,000 worth of local cane in water in a refrigerated warehouse, only to watch her investment spoil. So she determined to bring in cane from Florida, the nation’s largest producer. There, cane flourishes during the summer. In Miami, where Ardolina has a condo, Cubans drink so much fresh sugar cane juice that it is on tap even in supermarkets.

Ardolina, who is Cuban, personally loves the juice, but it’s also made her restaurant more profitable. “My business has increased so much since I began doing this drink,” she says.

Her next obstacle was the California quarantine that outlaws cane from Florida. The goal is to keep out the sugar-cane bore, an insect that bores into the stalk and taproot of cane and could attack corn and other grasslike plants.

“We have a lot of those plants here, and we want to protect them from this pest,” says Allen Clark, program supervisor, pest exclusion branch of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Fortunately, there are ways to treat cane to make it pest-free. One is to chill it to 15 degrees for three days. Another is to simmer it in hot water at a temperature of 125 degrees for 20 minutes.

Florida’s big cane crop goes primarily to that state’s sugar mills and is not exported to California. Therefore, it is untreated and remained out of Ardolina’s reach until she got together with Adolfo J. Rodriguez Jr. of B.I.B. Management Corp. in Miami. B.I.B. grows cane on 100 acres and distributes it under the FloriCane label. Most of it goes to supermarkets, restaurants and other outfits that juice it for the Cuban market.

Cane for the sugar mills is harvested from October into April, but Rodriguez grows it all year. “We have the best cane for juicing,” he says proudly. “We sell it in 25- pound bags, already cleaned and cut on a slant so the machine will take it.” Happily, Rodriguez was willing to treat the cane so that it would meet California requirements.

And that is how Ardolina came to be an importer of inspected, pest-free cane. Still, there can be problems. Recently, the cane shipment was held up, and Ardolina had to revert temporarily to serving traditional Cuban mojitos, which are made with a light sugar syrup instead of cane juice.

Other states also grow cane. Louisiana is the leading commercial producer after Florida, followed on a smaller scale by Texas and Hawaii. But Ardolina insists on Florida cane. “Cubans are really picky about their sugar cane,” she says. “They want cane like that at home, like in Miami or Cuba.”

She says the Florida cane makes a better drink. “It tends to be juicier, and there is less sugar to it, which is perfect for my drink. California cane to me is sweeter and more concentrated.”

Cubans call sugar cane juice guarapo, and the machine that grinds it out is a trapiche or guarapera. Getting a trapiche was also a challenge for Ardolina. Here again the Rodriguez family stepped in. More than 30 years ago, Adolfo R. Rodriguez, who is Adolfo Jr.’s father, surveyed cane-chewing Cubans in Miami and decided to design a machine that would provide them with juice.

His first machine, a 450-pound mammoth, has been refined into the small, sleek stainless-steel machine that Ardolina uses. The machines are leased by his company, Adoro Marketing Inc., to businesses that then contract to buy cane from B.I.B. However, Ardolina was able to buy the machine outright.

Ardolina is so proud of her drink that she serves it in a special glass. Designed to look tilted, the glass unnerves some customers--especially if they’ve had a few mojitos. She also hands out a souvenir mojito postcard. And she’s given the drink a special name, Xiomara’s Mambo.

Fresh sugar cane juice is mellow, almost honey-like in flavor. To speed up bar service, it would make sense for Ardolina to extract a large quantity for use as needed. That, unfortunately, is not possible. The juice deteriorates so rapidly that if you linger over your mojito, you can watch it slowly darken in the glass. This means each drink must be prepared to order.

Although the mojito is her big seller, Ardolina also makes what she calls Xiomara lemonade--a combination of lime juice, ice and sugar cane juice. And she has experimented with cane juice in sweet marinades for meat and sauces. “In Havana, they drink sugar cane juice, they don’t cook with it. Cubans don’t cook with sweet at all,” she says.

California cane will appear again by the end of the month, and Xiomara says she’ll use it until the season ends in the latter part of May.

Sugar cane is often seen in Latino markets, where customers buy it to chew, not for juice. Aside from Ardolina’s restaurant, freshly squeezed juice is more likely to be found in Asian and Vietnamese shops because it’s a common drink in Southeast Asia.

Rainbow Bakery in Los Angeles’ Chinatown advertises fresh cane juice. And we saw a woman feeding cane stalks into a machine at a stall in Asian Garden Mall on Bolsa Avenue in Westminster. That stall exhibits a poster that advertises Florida guarapo.

When fresh juice is unavailable, canned sugar cane juice drinks can fill in. They can be found in markets that cater to the Vietnamese, as well as at Vietnamese snack shops.

We bought two brands in Chinatown to use in testing Ardolina’s recipe. One is Yeo’s Sugar Cane Drink from Malaysia. The other is Imperatae & Cane Drink from Visoy Foods of Los Angeles. Both have the mellow, honey-like flavor of fresh cane juice, and, while not quite the same, are perfectly fine for use in cooking. An advantage to the canned drink is it retains its golden color rather than turning brown as it stands.

Mojito

This recipe has been adapted to use canned sugar cane juice.

Active Work and Total Preparation Time: 10 minutes * Easy

4 sprigs mint (4 to 5 leaves on sprig)

4 slices lime

Ice cubes

1 cup white rum

Sugar cane juice (about 2 cups)

1/4 cup superfine sugar

Club soda or Sprite

* For each drink, muddle (or mash with spoon) 1 sprig mint and 1 lime slice in bottom of tall glass. Fill glass with ice. Add 1/4 cup rum. Fill glass almost to top with sugar cane juice (about 1/2 cup). Add 1 tablespoon superfine sugar. Stir. Top with a splash of soda.

4 servings. Each serving: 403 calories; 85 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 68 grams carbohydrates; 0 protein; 0 fiber.

Chino Latino Roasted Duck With Tamarind Sauce

Active Work Time: 30 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour plus 8 hours marinating

Look for frozen tamarind at Central American markets.

ROASTED DUCK

2 cups soy sauce

1/2 cup sugar cane juice

1/2 cup oil

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Grated zest of 1 lime

2 teaspoons toasted cumin seeds

3 bay leaves, crushed

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon hickory smoke

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

8 (6-ounce) duck breast halves

* Combine soy sauce, sugar cane juice, oil, lemon zest, lime zest, cumin seeds, bay leaves, pepper, hickory smoke and garlic in large bowl and blend well. Add duck breasts, cover and marinate in refrigerator overnight.

* Drain duck. Grill over high heat, breast side first, until brown, 5 minutes. Turn and grill other side 2 minutes. Place in baking pan and roast at 500 degrees until cooked through, 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Serve duck breasts with Tamarind Sauce.

TAMARIND SAUCE

3 (10 1/2-ounce) cans concentrated beef broth

3 shallots, chopped

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon oil

2 cups red wine

2 1/2 cups thawed frozen tamarind

2 teaspoons molasses

2 teaspoons brown sugar, lightly packed

Salt, pepper

* Boil broth over medium-high heat until reduced to 4 cups, about 10 minutes.

* Saute shallots and garlic in oil over medium heat until soft, 1 minute. Add wine and tamarind and boil until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Add molasses, brown sugar and broth and reduce by half until thick, 25 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 2 cups.

2 cups. Each tablespoon: 37 calories; 148 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 6 grams carbohydrates; 0 protein; 0.49 gram fiber.

8 servings. Each serving with 1 tablespoon sauce: 247 calories; 293 mg sodium; 43 mg cholesterol; 22 grams fat; 5 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 0.06 gram fiber.

Chuleta de Puerco a la Barbacoa

Active Work Time: 20 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes plus 24 hours marinating

6 ancho chiles

1/2 onion, diced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons oil

1 cup beer

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup sugar cane juice

1 teaspoon ground roasted cumin

1 teaspoon ground roasted coriander

Salt, pepper

8 (1/2-pound) thick pork chops

* Roast chiles in dry skillet over medium heat until softened, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove stems and seeds. Chop chiles. Saute chiles with onion and garlic in oil, 8 minutes. Add beer and broth and boil over medium heat until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add sugar cane juice, cumin, coriander and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer over medium heat 30 minutes. Puree mixture in blender.

* Place pork chops in glass dish and pour over marinade. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours.

* Remove chops from marinade. Grill over medium-high heat until brown on both sides, 6 to 8 minutes. Place in 13x9-inch baking pan, cover with foil and bake at 500 degrees until tender, 25 minutes.

8 servings. Each serving: 328 calories; 248 mg sodium; 86 mg cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 17 grams carbohydrates; 31 grams protein; 0.20 gram fiber.

Mustard Greens

Active Work Time: 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour

1 onion, diced

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

2 cups bacon, chopped (ABOUT HOW MUICH OF A POUND IS THIS? kg)

1 1/2 bunches mustard greens, stems removed and roughly chopped

1 cup rice vinegar

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup sugar cane juice

Salt, pepper

* Saute onion and garlic with bacon over medium heat until bacon is cooked, 10 minutes.

* Add greens, vinegar, broth and sugar cane juice and saute until greens are heated through, 5 minutes.

* Place in 13x9-inch baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees until greens are tender, 40 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

8 servings. Each serving: 243 calories; 816 mg sodium; 24 mg cholesterol; 15 grams fat; 15 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 0.65 gram fiber.