Classic Cocktails in History: the Daiquiri | The Alcohol Professor Classic Cocktails in History: the Daiquiri Brian Petro | May 14, 2014 | _Featured , Cocktails | 3 Comments classic Daiquiri made with Cuban rum, ctsy Cocktailmarler Cuba has a very complex past. Most of us only know of it as a Cold War foe of the United States, a very foreign country only a hundred miles away. It has been that way since Castro took power in the late 1950’s. First discovered by Christopher Columbus and claimed for Spain, this small island has been coveted by other countries for its entire history. It has a temperate climate, making it great for growing crops, and a location that was excellent for a stopping point after several months at sea. Spain was the primary owner of the island through most of its history, but it was not without a fight. The rich land attracted pirates and privateers from Britain and France to steal what treasures they could from Spanish ships. Once Spain allowed some flexibility in the colony’s trade, the floodgates opened and money came pouring into the coffers. They were filled primarily by two different crops; tobacco and sugar.

Tobacco was very easy to process. Sugar was not. There was a complex system used to create sugar crystals, and the leftover molasses was a sticky mess to discard. This sets the backdrop for the creation of one of the finest cocktails in modern history: the Daiquiri. During the turbulent struggle for naval supremacy, Spain and England traded blows around the edges of South America, the Caribbean, and anywhere there was water and unclaimed territory. Both sides used whatever means possible, including pirates and privateers, to gain an advantage in the resource rich Americas. The British were struggling to expand their foothold in the Americas; Spain was struggling to maintain the land they had, and the resources it was providing the ailing empire. The British were also struggling to stay sober on the seas. The sailors were provided a gallon of beer a day through a law passed in the 17th century. Due to the massive amount of beer they had to supply to a military force 4,500 miles away, a pint of rum was considered a fair substitute. It was easier to get, but far more potent. It was not until 1740 that someone was able to sober up the navy.

Admiral Edward “Old Grog” Vernon ordered that the rum ration be mixed with water and citrus juice (usually limes) to dilute the potent spirit. This gave the English the edge of fighting a little more sober, and healthier. It also is one of the earliest known instances of the combination of lime juice, water, and rum, the base of what would become a Daiquiri. Spain survived the encounters with Britain and held on to many of its American acquisitions for over a century, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other islands a little too close to home for us. It did not sit well with a United States eager to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, asking European powers to kindly stay on their own side of the world. The biggest of the conflicts caused by this was the Spanish-American War, and Cuba had a starring role to play. They were seeking independence from Spain, and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt advocated helping them achieve it. The U.S. landed troops on a beach named Daiquiri, just a short distance away from an iron mine in Santiago. This “splendid little war” allowed the United States to occupy Cuba and do what Spain had done for centuries before; profit from the vast resources of the island.

One of the people making a healthy profit was Jennings Cox. He was one of the first iron miners on the island once it was safe, and generally credited with creating the original Daiquiri. The story goes that while he was entertaining guests one night, he ran out of the gin everyone was enjoying. He went out and purchased the easiest liquor he could find, which was rum. Adding lemons, sugar, mineral water, and ice to the rum, he turned it into a punch for his guests. They loved it, and wanted to know what the name of it was. He did not have a name for it; it should have been called a rum sour according to the conventions of the day. Cox did not feel that was good enough for such a fine drink, so he named it for the nearby beach and called it Daiquiri. original handwritten recipe via Bacardi Jennings Cox’s Original Recipe (via Bacardi ) 6 Lemons 6 tsp./ 30 ml Sugar 6 c./ 1.4 l of Bacardi Rum 2 c./ .5 l of Mineral water Crushed ice Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Add the ice after the mixture is stirred thoroughly. Ladle into cups and enjoy.

If you read the original recipe, this serves six people. The combination of water, rum, sugar, and lemon was a combination well known to the natives of Cuba. The general recipe was well known to bartenders in the form of a little ditty “One sour, two sweet, three strong, four weak”. Jennings Cox threw together a great cocktail on the fly, but it was a punch designed for multiple servings. American knowledge of the drink is often credited to Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a US naval officer who visited Cuba and fell in love with it. He allegedly introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington D.C. and the University Club in Baltimore. From there it started to spread, and as many bartenders are prone to do, there were some alterations made. While it was spreading and being altered in the United States, it was being refined by the bartenders of Cuba. The cocktail went from a punch to a single serving drink, and from being poured over ice to shaken with ice and strained into a chilled glass. The mineral water was removed as it was discovered that the melting and crushing of ice into the cocktail would provide the “weak” element to the cocktail and balance the flavors out.

It was not until the 1930’s when the Daiquiri started to really step into the limelight, courtesy of two of the biggest writers of the era. Very little is said about F. Scott Fitzgerald as it relates to the cocktail. He was the first to put it one of his novels; it had a brief cameo in This Side of Paradise, written in 1920. Volumes have been written about the other author most associated with the Daiquiri, Ernest Hemingway. He had a profound impact on not only the popularity of the cocktail, but even created his own variation on it. The Hemingway Daiquiri, or Papa Doble, was a variation of the Daiquiri he worked out while drinking at El Floridita . Hemingway was a diabetic, and the sugar did not agree with his system. To maintain the sweetness, he added grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur. He also doubled the amount of rum in the cocktail (thus adding the doble to the name). He became linked to Cuba, and to the cocktails there.

He even wrote on the wall of La Bodeguita del Medio “My mojito in La Bodeguita, My Daiquiri in El Floridita.” Hemingway and El Floridita bar present day, Havana, ctsy Tony Hisget his thirst for alcohol made a few bars, and bartenders, famous in Cuba. 3 oz./90 ml of White rum 1 oz./30 ml of Lime juice .5 oz/ 15 ml of Grapefruit juice .25 oz/ 8 ml of Maraschino liqueur Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in a refrigerator. Pour all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker over ice and shake gently. Strain into the chilled cocktail glass and enjoy. This cocktail can also be served in coupe. Hemingway also came at the beginning of a transitional time for the cocktail in Cuba. Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, the bartender of where the author was imbibing his Daiquiris, was adding a subtle change to the drink. In the 1930’s two products hit the general public that would change the Daiquiri for generations: the refrigerator and the blender.

Constantino, or “El Grande Constante” as he was known to some, was making the drink a little frostier. With a machine that could make or hold as much ice as you needed, Constantino was in the process of adding the ice back into the drink. It was crushed ice, not cubed as it was closer to Cox’s time, but the ice had returned. As the fame of the Daiquiri spread, it became harder and harder to keep up with the growing demand at bars all over. In 1938, Fred Waring rolled out a machine to help speed up the drink making process. It would pulverize the ice faster, making drinks with crushed ingredients easier to make. It was called the Waring Blender, and it either catapulted the cocktail to the next level or ruined it, depending on who you ask. (Most bartenders will probably go with ruined.) With the ability to purée any fruit, the lime flavored Daiquiri moved to banana, strawberry, mango, or any other flavor you could think of. The ability to crush as much ice as you could made the drink get bigger and bigger.

Over time, the delicately balanced cocktail turned into the off balance, sweet slurry we have come to expect. frozen daiquiri dispensers in Baton Rouge, LA, ctsy Corey Taratuta In the late 40’s and 50’s, a cultural predilection for tropical climates and foreign liquors pushed the popularity of the cocktail into the American psyche. After World War I, Prohibition, and World War II, the whiskey that Americans typically enjoyed in cocktails was in short supply. Rum and vodka became popular, and the Daiquiri rode that wave of popularity to enjoy the beach-staple status it enjoys today. It also brought on the boom of switching popular gin cocktails to vodka (vodka “left you breathless” after all) and the Tiki cocktail craze. As liquor masking heavy flavors became popular, so did the fruity and overly-sweet version of the Daiquiri. Like many other old standbys of the early 20th century, the three ingredient masterpiece became a thing of old men and an ancient era. Showing off the technology of the time is what people were looking for, and that frozen Daiquiri filled that niche.

The Daiquiri remained like that, frozen in its sweet tomb, until the hand-crafted cocktail boom of the 1990’s. The Nineties started the long return to hand crafted cocktails with fresh squeezed juices. Using liqueurs and bitters for flavor over processed sour mixes gave bartenders new options. Bottles of sour mix were replaced with plenty of lemons, limes, and sugar. Bars began to infuse their own spirits, create specialized simple syrups, and head back to the delightfully heady days of exploring the flavors inherent in the spirits. Old became new again, and there was an appreciation for what the bartenders of yore were creating with simple ingredients. The Daiquiri is still working to lose its sordid past as a party cocktail, much like the Martini and the Margarita. It is one of the elites in cocktail history. Many scholars and historians see it as one of the pillars of the cocktail world. It deserves that reputation. It is one of the few rum drinks that stands so tall in history (the Mai Tai being another one), and one of the few sours that has its own identity.

There has been some sort lime blossom, ctsy Prosthetic Head of variation of rum, lime, sugar, and water since it was the raw spirit rumbullion. It is also one of the few classic, old school cocktails that does not involve bitters (martinis were originally made with orange bitters). 1.5 oz./ 45 ml White Rum 1 oz./ 30 ml Simple syrup (I prefer a 1:1) .75 oz./ 23 ml Lime juice Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in a refrigerator. Pour all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker over ice and shake gently. Strain into the chilled cocktail glass and enjoy. You may substitute 1 oz./30 ml of lemon juice if you have difficulty finding limes. With the current “limepocalypse” that is happening in the US, there are some interesting questions about this cocktail. Is it still a Daiquiri without the lime? Can you substitute? Like any good debate on how cocktails used to be made (Bring up how you feel an Old Fashioned should be made among a group of three or more bartenders. Go ahead.), there is an argument for making a TRUE Daiquiri with lemon juice.

The one Jennings Cox made (and wrote the recipe for) called for lemons, and that is considered by most to be the first use of the Americans landing at the pier at Daiquiri, ctsy James Burton name with the cocktail. The lemon blends into the cocktail more, taking away a little of the tartness the lime brings to the table. If you want to get more tartness, you are going to need to add extra lemon juice. Most recipes you will find for using lemon will call it a lemon Daiquiri. They will also call for that extra lemon we were discussing. Cuba was the epicenter for the creation of a cocktail that was an instant classic. The blending of lime, rum, and sugar was made to go together. It was concocted at a time when rum was relatively unknown, and Cuba was just starting to feel a little freedom. Before the US embargo in the 1950’s, tourists were flocking there for the cooling effect of a Daiquiri in warm tropical breezes while sitting on a beach and reading Across the River and Into the Trees . The Daiquiri is a perfect summer drink, and now is the perfect time to go out and rediscover it. Sharing is good for you!

About The Author brian_petro Brian Petro, a native of the great state of Ohio, found himself in the town of Dayton after graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art. His path has wound through the design, education, and restaurant industries, all of them adding a little something to the overall flavor of his creative endeavors. The first time he stepped behind a bar, it felt like home. Ever since, he has absorbed all of the liquor knowledge he can find, from culture to history to recipes, and done his best to share what he knows with the world. Or, at least the readers of Dayton Most Metro, where he is the writer about all things cocktail. He also likes the word “Brilliant” too much and appreciates the beauty of winter more than most. Follow him @SmartGuyInATie. The History Of Cocktails - Whiskey Cocktail, Cosmopolitan, Mai Tai - Thrillist Flickr/jon oropeza The Daiquiri This shaken cocktail ranks higher in terms of importance, as opposed to the Daisy, which is comprised of spirit/citrus/flavored sweetener, because the Daiquiri doesn’t beat around the bush on what ingredients it’s made with.

It is also one of the few OG cocktails not developed in the continental United States (possible reasons for an embargo?). The “Holy Trinity” of cocktail ingredients of spirit/sweetener/citrus have been wetting people's lips for centuries and been imbibed in the Caribbean (a region where the major exports and resources were rum, sugar cane, and citrus) since the creation of rum. The Daiquiri’s creation is accredited to an American engineer stationed in Cuba during the years of the Spanish-American Wars named Jennings Cox (The Dickuiri). Its first incarnation was served in a champagne flute with crushed ice, hardly resembling what it’s recognized as today. But when it finally migrated into Havana, the bartenders modified the recipe into a shaken drink that was strained into the cocktail we are familiar with today. It struggled to find its footing in the American bar scene until the advent of Prohibition drove many a tippler to parts unknown to find a drink. Cuba was one of those destinations. It became the drink of scholars, presidents, and Nobel Prize winners for Literature. Old Papa Hemingway became such a fan of the concoction that there are several incarnations of the drink that bear his name.

The Daiquiri 1oz lime juice ¾oz simple syrup Build all ingredients in a shaker tin with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a well-chilled coupe. Adapted from the Milk and Honey cocktail list Flickr/Sam Howzit Mai Tai Post World War II, interest in South Pacific culture exploded in the cocktail world, fueling the Tiki boom of the mid-century. Tiki bars popped up all over the country, each attempting to out shine one another with lavish Tiki decor, huge bowls of cocktails, tiny umbrellas in every drink, and grass skirts on pretty servers. The most famous names to appear during this time were Don the Beachcomber in the early '30s and a few years later Trader Vic, the inventor of the Mai Tai in 1944. Both personalities were very secretive of their cocktails and some of the recipes they invented have been lost or became so molested they are almost impossible to recreate, unless Chris Hansen is on the job.

However, unlike his Tiki-themed predecessor -- whose overly complicated, nine-ingredient behemoth of a cocktail known as the Zombie appeared nearly a full decade before -- Trader Vic’s cocktail was simple and didn’t drown out the flavor under layers of fruits and aromatics. The combination of orange flavored Curaçao and a French almond flavoring (Orgeat) in this drink was deserving of a name that translates to “out of the world” in Tahitian. Aside from being the cocktail embodiment of the Tiki style, it also garnered such popularity in such a short amount of time that it used up all of the specific rum that it was originally made with (Wray & Nephew 17-year Jamaican Rum). In Jeff Berry’s book Potions of the Caribbean, he points out that the cocktail became “less a drink than a symbol of your Hawaiian holiday, either the one you’d taken or the one you aspired to take.

It was paradise in a glass.” (With much less sunburning and unsightly body hair, I’m assuming.) Mai Tai Flickr/Ralph Daily Frozen Margarita It could, and probably should, be argued that the classic margarita is more influential in the pantheon of cocktails but just bear with us here. The classic margarita, when made properly with fresh ingredients is untouchable, but it didn’t really start appearing in bars until around the 1930s. Even then it never really took off until 40 years later. Its sudden rise in popularity is due largely to Mariano Martinez, a Dallas restaurateur and inventor of the Frozen Margarita Machine. The most common difficulty that all cocktails face on this list is subtle changes made from one bar to another and even one bartender to the next. This was a problem that Mariano Martinez, the owner and operator of Dallas-based restaurant Mariano’s Mexican Cuisine faced in 1970. His business was so popular, thanks in part to the budding interest in Tex-Mex style dining , that his bartenders were cranking out over 200 blended margaritas per night with just one blender.

Once customers began to complain that their drinks tasted different from one to the next, Martinez, acting as any savvy businessman should, tried to find a solution. After a late-night 7-Eleven Slurpee bender, the inspiration for the Frozen Margarita Machine was born. This innovation was so influential that the original machine was retired to a place of importance in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and has been considered one of the “Top Ten Inventions from the National Museum of American History’s Collection”. There is no denying that the classic margarita deserves its title among the masters, but in terms of influence it doesn’t come close to the popularity, simplicity, and continuity of its frozen counterpart. Margarita Flickr/alisdair The Long Island Iced Tea If there is one cocktail synonymous with aggressive drinking, it's the Long Island Iced Tea. Love it or hate it (most of that hate comes from loving a few too many of them), the LIIT is a cocktail recognized the world over.

Created in the disco fueled '70s by Robert “Rosebud” Butt, at the New York bar Oak Beach Inn, it contains a sampling of virtually every spirit found in a standard bar well with just enough sweeteners to help wash it down. While there is a varying story about its origin dating back to the '20s, the cocktail only partially mirrors what we know and drink today (and regret drinking tomorrow). Considering there is no actual tea in this recipe (even though there is virtually everything else) the cocktail gets its name from the color it derives from the combination of cola and the poor substitute for citrus that was popular at the time, sour mix. Not too many bars were focusing on fresh ingredients in those days, and you would have been hard pressed to find fresh lemon or lime juice at a disco. Being able to deceive the masses into believing that their cocktail doesn’t taste like there is anything in it is an enormous feat, and though it might not be the most influential cocktail in any global sense, it sure has had an impact on almost every person that came of drinking age since the '70s.

If you have never had a Long island Iced Tea, you’re doing it all wrong and should go back to the moment you turned 21 and start again. Long Island Iced Tea Flickr/Justin Henry The Gin-Gin Mule It might seem a relative newcomer to the pantheon of influential cocktails, but it would be dismissive to overlook, so stay with us. Though not as commercially well-known today as its vodka-based predecessor, the Moscow Mule, in terms of milestones in the modern cocktail world, it was a stepping stone for others to follow. When Audrey Saunders opened Pegu Club, it was after years of honing a craft that only a select few at the time were even beginning to take seriously, and her approach to cocktails was groundbreaking. She took an uncompromising stance on using fresh ingredients and, in the case of the Gin-Gin Mule, using a homemade ginger beer. A method that was developed in a kitchen to extract more of the fresh ginger flavor, she was able to add more spice and better flavor to the cocktail. What made this seemingly innocuous move into a big deal, was that she took what bartenders use every night and set to improve it in the kitchen.

Her use of the homemade ginger beer and fresh lime juice moved a further step away from the syrupy Rose's lime and sweet sodas of a few short years before (looking back at you, Frozen Margarita!). Very soon, this became commonplace, as any serious mixologist worth their shake(r) would attempt to use homemade mixtures and fresh ingredients in their cocktails whenever possible. Saunders opened up the playing field for countless spinoffs, like PDT’s Mezcal Mule and the Penicillin of Milk & Honey fame (and arguably the most well-known modern classic). She also paved the way for innovators like Dave Arnold at Booker and Dax to further blur the line between the kitchen and the bar. Gin-Gin Mule 1½oz dry gin ¾oz housemade ginger beer ½oz fresh lime juice ½oz simple syrup 6 mint sprigs Splash of soda water Place mint leaves in a shaker and gently muddle with the lime juice and syrup. Add the gin and the ginger beer and fill with ice. Shake well and strain into an ice-filled glass and add a splash of soda. Garnish with a mint sprig and a lime wheel.

Nick Bennett is the bar captain at NYC cocktail bar Booker and Dax and Thrillist’s cocktail correspondent. Follow him @TheNickB for cocktail recipes and knowledge you didn’t know you wanted. Cocktails 101: The Daiquiri - Eater Cocktails 101: The Daiquiri Share Ernest Hemingway put away 15 frozen daiquiris in one sitting, while John F. Kennedy sipped daiqs when he beat Nixon in the 1960 presidential election—at least according to legend. Today, daiquiris are the beloved beverage of cocktail aficionados and wannabe vacationers to the newly reopened Cuba. Below, every single thing you need to know about one of the most classic of classic cocktails—history, tips and techniques, recipes, and variations. History of the Daiquiri While most vintage drinks lack documentation proving their precise point of creation, the daiquiri's origin is backed up by an actual cocktail recipe card signed by a "Jennings Cox" in 1896. Cox, an American engineer who lived and worked in Cuba after the Spanish-American War, is believed to have invented the daiquiri after running out of gin while throwing a cocktail party.

Since rum is plentiful in the country, it proved a convenient substitute in a punch he was serving. Unlike what's stated on his recipe card, the drink was made with limes—since lemons were unheard of in Cuba—and brown sugar. It turned out to be a huge hit, and Cox christened it the "Daiquiri," naming the drink after a nearby port town, which also happened to be where the U.S. first invaded Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Photo by Stan Lee However, considering the island has a bounty of lime, sugar, and rum, it's likely that Cox was merely the first to pen the recipe of a cocktail that had already existed in Cuba. Not to mention that a prototype of the daiquiri—"grog" with lime juice, sugar, rum, and water—had been saving the British Royal Navy from scurvy for centuries before. And variations of rum-lime-sugar drinks previously populated Cuba ( el draque , the precursor to the mojito, was invented by Sir Francis Drake during the 1500s) and the Caribbean ( ti' punch from 1887).

But, in 1909, Cox's cocktail, which until then could only be found in Cuba, was brought to America by Admiral Lucius W. Johnson. The U.S. naval officer, who had visited Cox and fell in love with his daiquiri, introduced it to Washington, D.C.'s Army and Navy Club. Then, four years later, as cited in prolific cocktail book author and leading rum expert Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's Potions of the Caribbean , bartender Emilio "El Maragato" Gonzalez of Havana's Hotel Plaza started serving the daiquiri up, shaken and strained into a coupe glass, as opposed to shaken and poured into an ice-filled flute. He also swapped in white sugar for brown sugar. This new presentation, along with the sweetener switch, allowed the rum to shine. Plus, it wasn't as diluted. Between the 1920s and 1930s in Cuba, the daiquiri underwent an important transformation. Constantino "Constante" Ribalaigua Vert, bartender and owner of a little bar in Havana called Floridita , perfected the drink with just shaved ice and the whir of an electric blender.

And the frozen daiquiri was born. Soon after, Ernest Hemingway, who was living in Cuba, happened into the bar and, after sampling Constante's frozen creation, requested it sans sugar and with double the rum on account of his diabetes. This, of course, made the cocktail conducive to epic drinking sessions and motivated Hemingway to become a bar regular. In one account from Berry's book, Hemingway put away 15 frozen daiquiris in one sitting. This earned the cocktail a permanent spot on Floridita's menu as the "E. Henmingway [sic] Special." Papa Hemingway's super tart recipe eventually evolved to the more drinkable Hemingway Daiquiri, a classic that now includes grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur, in addition to rum and lime. RECIPE: THE DAIQUIRI 2 teaspoons organic cane sugar 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice 2 ounces white Cuban or Cuban-style rum Add sugar and lime juice to a cocktail shaker, and stir to dissolve sugar. Add rum. Fill shaker with ice and shake like hell. Strain into a cocktail coupe.

*Recipe courtesy of Jeff "Beachbum" Berry Around the 1940s and 1950s, thanks to America's growing fascination with exotic, tropical climes , the frozen daiquiri became adopted as a drink to be enjoyed beside a body of water—be it beach or pool. The original three-ingredient cocktail was forsaken for this sweet slurry, which was available in a variety of fruit flavors and dispensed via machine. Later on, chain restaurants like TGIFriday's and college bars appropriated the concoction, and eventually instant daiquiri cocktail mixes for the home bartender hit stores. Decades later, the classic daiquiri—shaken, not frozen—is celebrating a comeback, thanks to cocktail historians, craft bartenders, and rum nerds who work to preserve and preach the original recipe's purity. Several years ago in Boston, Andrew Dietz—co-founder of cocktail fest Thirst Boston —and some of his bartender friends conceived a new hospitality industry drink ritual: the Daiquiri Time-Out (DTO) . The DTO is a daiquiri shot to be taken after a stressful situation, or for those who simply need a break.

Whether that act originated from the Christopher Walken line in 2005's Wedding Crashers, when Walken's character suggested a daiquiri time out from the game of touch football, is anyone's guess. But Deitz describes it as "a modern day drinking ritual that celebrates that act of taking a moment." And now this mini daiquiri has usurped the Fernet Branca shot as the bartenders' unofficial handshake. A perfect new role for this classic cocktail. Ernest and Mary Hemingway circa 1950 at La Floridita in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Ernest Hemingway Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. Jeff "Beachbum" Berry Waxes Poetic on A Proper Daiquiri's Vital Components When Berry was planning his New Orleans tiki and Polynesian restaurant Latitude 29 , he spent the better part of a year perfecting his house daiquiri. With only three components, the drink must hit that perfect balance of sweet-sour-boozy using the right ingredients. Below, his discoveries.

Ingredients: Sugar, Lime, Rum Sugar: After many sugar syrup (alias simple syrup or gomme syrup) trials, my unwavering opinion is: don’t use it. Syrup gives you a glycerine-like mouth-feel, and muddies the crisp, snappy vibe that a proper daiquiri should have. I am 100 percent for dissolving granulated sugar in the lime juice before adding rum and shaking. The difference is striking. And the effort is minimal: It’s the same thing we do when making a proper Old Fashioned—and the daiquiri deserves the same respect. Organic cane sugar works best. Don’t use brown sugar, or a gold sugar like turbinado or Demerara—they’re too molasses-y, and they’ll kill the drink. Lime: I like Persian or Mexican limes, squeezed fresh before shaking. But if you want to pre-squeeze before a dinner party or backyard soiree, the juice will last up to four hours. Key limes are fine, too, but they’re very small. So, you have to squeeze a lot of them and it gets tedious.

A Note on Rum Brands and the Importance of ABV Today, the common ABV (alcohol by volume) for white rums is 40 percent, or 80 proof. This is not ideal for a daiquiri. In El Maragato and Constantino’s day, 86 proof was standard, with some expressions reaching 90 proof. A higher percent of alcohol is better for the cocktail because the less water in the bottle, the more concentrated the rum flavor. Ironically, there’s no Cuban white rum on the market today with an ABV above 40 percent. So, go with these Cuban-style rums. Daiquiri-Approved Brands: Caña Brava white (86 proof), Bacardi Heritage Limited Edition (89 proof), Plantation 3 Stars white (82.4 proof), and Maggie's Farm Queen's Share Unaged (116 proof). If 80 proof is all you can find, I would not refuse a daiquiri made with Havana Club 3-Year white, Doorly’s 3-Year white, Privateer Silver Reserve, or El Dorado 3-Year white.

Rum: I’ve seen very knowledgeable and talented bloggers, newspaper writers, magazine columnists, bartenders and brand reps all touting daiquiris made with gold rum, dark rum, spiced rum, and even different rums blended together. I call shenanigans. The original Cuban daiquiri—as invented by Jennings Stockton Cox in the port town of Daiquiri, and later perfected in Havana by El Maragato at the Hotel Plaza and Constantino Ribalaigua Vert at Floridita—called for white Cuban rum. And that is the style of rum that makes the drink taste best. But in the name of all that is holy, do not make your daiquiri with a gold rum or a dark rum, no matter how much you like the brand. It may be a nice drink, but call it by another name because it is not a daiquiri. If you use Jamaican rum, you’ve made planter’s punch in a cocktail coupe. If you use Martinique agricole, it’s ti' punch on the stem. The color will be wrong, the density will be wrong, and the drink’s delicate balance will be thrown off.

Ice Don’t bother with giant Kold-Draft cubes, or other king cubes. They won’t give you the dilution you want. If that’s what you’ve got, crack them into smaller pieces, or mix them with a little crushed ice. Otherwise, go with smaller cubes. And fill your shaker to the top. Technique: Shake, Strain Give it everything you’ve got and shake for 15 to 20 seconds, or until the outside of your metal shaker frosts. The daiquiri needs to be COLD, and it also needs dilution. Some people double strain their daiquiris, catching all the ice shards in a fine mesh strainer through which they pour the elixir into the glass. Personally, I don’t mind the shards. But it’s a judgement call, and I don’t judge you either way. Garnish and Serve At ease. No need for a garnish. But if you want to dress your drink with a lime wheel on the rim, or a curlicue lime peel in the drink, there’s no harm in it. And who am I to deny the love you show your guests by doing so?

Four daiquiris make me feel much better about the world and the horrible people who are hell-bent on destroying it. Five and I rue the next morning. But that’s just my intake—make of it what you will, and adjust to your own reality. Variations La Florida Daiquiri Number 2: Longtime owner of Floridita, Constantino Ribalaigua Vert's orange-accented daiquiri adds dashes of Curaçao and orange juice to the original. Hemingway Daiquiri: Another Constantino variation, here grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur join the drink's base ingredients. Don's Special Daiquiri: Don the Beachcomber's tikified daiquiri is sweetened with passion fruit syrup and honey instead of sugar. Nuclear Daiquiri: This is one of the most famous recent daiquiri variations, and one that has been very popular in the U.K. for years. Late bartender Gregor de Gruyther's modern classic daiquiri riff calls for green Chartreuse, overproof rum, and falernum in place of sugar.

Table Of Contents (all h2's added automatically) Daiquiri Cocktail History and Recipes | Primer A Guy's Guide To Growing Up Affordable style, self-development, how-tos, and apartment DIY for the aspiring gentleman. The Daiquiri: The Origins and Evolution of a Classic Rum Cocktail The Daiquiri has gotten a bad rap by chain restaurants slinging neon sugar shakes. Over a hundred years old, the rum drink – the real Daiquiri - is a delicious cocktail perfect for summer. 10 July,2012By Christopher Buecheler / Photos By Andrew Snavely “The moment had arrived for a Daiquiri. It was a delicate compound; it elevated my contentment to an even higher pitch.”1 – Joseph Hergesheimer, San Cristobal de la Habana The Rum Daiquiri is a nearly perfect cocktail. It is simple, elegant, and as refreshing a summer drink as one could ask for. It resides – along with the Martini , the Manhattan, and a select handful of others – in the pantheon of drinks that perfectly reflect the spirit and character of their base liquors without introducing needless complexity or requiring excessive preparation.

You can make a Daiquiri in mere minutes, with the most basic of bar ingredients, and with the first sip be transported to the warm, white-sand beaches of the Caribbean, most particularly those of Cuba, its birthplace. Today, even in the midst of a global cocktail renaissance, there are countless bars and restaurants whose “Daiquiris” consist of artificial strawberry-flavored corn syrup, poured over crushed ice with a dash of bad rum, served up to drinkers more concerned with quantity than quality. While these drinks owe something – a very small something – to the existence of the “Hemingway Daiquiri,” I ask that you trust me: if your drink looks like it belongs on a table in the Malibu Barbie Dream House … it’s not the real thing. A real Daiquiri consists of white rum, lime juice, and simple syrup, shaken and strained into a chilled cocktail glass and garnished with a lime wedge.

The resulting fizzy, foamy, off-white concoction is named for the town in which it was invented, and that invention happened by happy accident in 1896.2 The drink was created by Jennings Cox, an American engineer who managed the Cuban properties for two American companies (credit as co-creator is also often given to a Cuban engineer named Pagliuchi). With important guests on the way, and finding himself without a source of gin – the genteel spirit at the time – Cox worried that they would not find the local tipple palatable if served neat. He added lime juice and sugar to the island’s pure cane rum, and a classic was born. This is not to say that the Daiquiri has sat unchanged since its birth more than a hundred years ago. In the days before Castro (particularly during prohibition), Cuba entertained a thriving bar scene and was home to many talented bartenders who helped to refine and perfect the cocktail. It was eventually brought to the United States by Admiral Lucius Johnson, and debuted at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC, where you can still find it to this day, served in its namesake cocktail lounge .

While the less is said about the bastardization of the Daiquiri into the hot pink monstrosity served up at TGI Fridays across the country, the better, one modification does bear mention both because of its historical significance and because it’s actually a fine cocktail in its own right. The aforementioned Hemingway Daiquiri, originally called simply Daiquiri #3, was developed by Constantino Ribailagua, the bartender at the El Florida Bar (aka the El Floridita). The writer Ernest Hemingway, who spent a good deal of his time in Cuba, helped make both the bar and the drink quite famous. The Hemingway Daiquiri is one of the rare cases where a bartender decided to add a bunch of stuff to an existing drink … and it worked. Marvelously. It brings grapefruit juice, Maraschino liqueur and shaved ice to the party, and there are two variations of the recipe, one which omits the simple syrup (Hemingway was a fan of drier drinks, in no small part due to diabetes-related sugar issues), and one which keeps it. In my recipe below, I’ve opted to split the difference and simply reduce it.

Your own tastes may vary, and I encourage frequent and repeated experimentation! More than a hundred years old, the venerable Daiquiri has stood the test of time and deserves its place in the cocktail pantheon. Below you’ll find recipes for the original, and the Hemingway variant, as well as my own humble entry into the field. It’s difficult to improve on perfection, but I’ve done my best, and I think my variation – The Ginger Daiquiri – keeps the spirit of the original while adding a refreshing spiciness. All three recipes call for white rum, and I recommend either Flor de Caña Extra Dry 4 Year Rum, or Denizen white rum, both of which are nicely priced at about sixteen dollars a bottle, and bring a lot more floral, vanilla and sugarcane notes to the drink than standard Bacardi or Cruzan white rums.3 The Classic Daiquiri The History of the Classic Daiquiri - The Fashionable Housewife The Fashionable Housewife You are here: Home / Home Life / Entertainment / The History of the Classic Daiquiri Published By The Fashionable Housewife The History of the Classic Daiquiri Ever wonder who invented some of the things you enjoy most?

If you’re like me, once in a while you just sit back and marvel, wondering “Gosh, who invented this?!” Urban legend has it that Jennings Cox, a mining engineer that did some work in the little Cuban beach town of Daiquiri, invented the drink back in the early 1900’s when he ran out of gin while entertaining American guests. It is more likely that the drink evolved naturally due to the prevalence of lime and sugar in the area though. Either way, we know that it was created in the town of Daiquiri, hence the name! Originally, the delicious drink was served up on cracked ice packed tightly into a tall glass. You would then add a teaspoon of sugar and carefully pour it over the ice. Add the juice of one or two limes plus 2 or 3 ounces of rum. Finish by stirring with a long-handled spoon and serve. Later the Daiquiri evolved to be served with shaved ice and shaken, not stirred. I’ve read that the Daiquiri first became popular back in the 1940’s when rationing during the war made vodka, whiskey, etc, seemingly hard to find.

Because of Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy”, also known as ‘The Pan-American program’, made Latin America seem more fashionable, which helped allow us to trade and travel more easily with places like Cuba and the Caribbean. When rum became more easily obtained, rum-based drinks (once thought of as a drink for sailors and the like) also became somewhat fashionable, and we then saw the Daiquiri soar in popularity here in the USA. This summer, rediscover the daiquiri! Bacardi Hand Shaken Daiquiri is the perfect addition to any summer get-together — fun, delicious, and ready to pour. Bacardi Hand Shaken Daiquiri is made with Bacardi Superior Rum, tangy lime and sugar. It is a perfectly balanced cocktail that is not too sour and not too sweet. This Post Is Sponsored by Bacardi Classic Hand Shake Daiquiri via Glam Media * Don’t be stupid lovelies – Drink responsibly!

Disclosure: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Bacardi Related posts: The History of the Daiquiri The History of the Daiquiri By Will Shenton Cocktails , Drinks Relatively speaking, the history of the Daiquiri isn’t mired in all that much hearsay and ambiguity compared to its fellow classic cocktails . That’s probably because it took all of about fifteen minutes to go from drunken, late-night experiment to wildly fashionable among the movers and shakers inside the Beltway (it was more like nine or ten years if you want to be technical), so there wasn’t a whole lot of time for the origin of the recipe to get lost. As with all of these histories, though, we can’t be absolutely certain about the prevailing narrative. People have been mixing all kinds of crap into their booze for millennia, and as long as the right ingredients were available, it seems likely that similar or even identical recipes have been invented by dozens of people who simply never met (or failed to market their creation properly, the cardinal sin of bartending). When it comes to the Daiquiri, though, there seems to be a pretty clear chain of events that connects its invention to its explosion in popularity.

And while its origins might not be particularly mysterious, they’re still absolutely fascinating. The Daiquiri and the Spanish-American War Don’t worry, we’re not going to give a lecture on the intricacies of the Spanish-American War (although the conflict seems to have had an inordinately large influence on cocktails— Remember the Maine , anyone?), but it deserves some mention here due to its role in setting the stage for the Daiquiri to exist in the first place. Thanks in part to advocacy by then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (and a combination of the Monroe doctrine and the potentially-accidental sinking of the USS Maine and generally negative attitudes toward Spain in America and… sorry, we said we wouldn’t do that), the United States intervened in the Cuban War of Independence by blockading the island on April 21st, 1898. Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt and his Rough Riders—an all-volunteer cavalry regiment he had put together after the war began and he resigned his civilian post—landed at Daiquirí beach in southeastern Cuba, forever cementing the name in American folklore.

The nearby village became a focal point of the US invasion, and after about three and a half months (as well as several extremely bloody battles), the Americans succeeded in driving the Spanish from the country. What followed was a bit of shady backpedaling from Congress, which had promised Cuba that American involvement wasn’t an attempt to annex the country. After the end of the war, though, they passed the Platt Amendment, which granted the US massive amounts of control over Cuban affairs without technically violating the terms they had agreed upon beforehand. As a result, American businesses moved in to snatch up the economic resources that had been left behind by the Spanish. A Late-Night Booze Run But enough about turn-of-the-century geopolitics, let’s get back to the cocktail . The sudden influx of American investment into Cuban agricultural and mining interests meant that there were a lot of farmers, engineers, and other professionals making their way to the island after the war. One such mining engineer, Jennings S. Cox, found himself somewhat haplessly stumbling into the annals of cocktail history. The story goes that one night, while entertaining guests at his home near the village of Daiquirí, Cox ran out of gin.

Probably in something of a panic (we’re editorializing, but we’ve all been there), he ran out to the village market to scrounge up an alternative. As you’d expect, the only thing he could find was a local rum—likely Bacardi, which had started distilling in Cuba nearly forty years prior. Apparently worried about the sensitive palates of his American guests, Cox decided to mix the stuff with some lemon juice and sugar in a punch bowl , and voila. The Daiquiri was born. While we don’t doubt that some version of this account actually happened, it’s a bit ridiculous to credit an American expat with the invention of a drink that had probably existed locally for decades, if not centuries. As we mentioned in our history of the Mojito , people had been cutting their rum with citrus juice and sugar ever since it was first introduced to the Caribbean, mostly to take the edge off of what was essentially the bathtub hooch of its time.

There was even a proto-Daiquiri that was popular among Cuban revolutionaries in the 19th century known as the Canchánchara , which consisted of two parts rum to one part lemon juice, and would certainly have been common in the area around Santiago where Cox lived and worked. So, while he might have been completely oblivious to it (and, come on, the guy was drinking gin on a tropical island), the engineer had simply added sugar and ice to a local favorite and renamed it. For whatever reason, though, his was the one that caught on. Heading North As far as we know, the next big step in the popularization of the Daiquiri came about ten years after Jennings Cox first mixed one up. Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a medical officer in the US Navy, apparently happened upon the Daiquiri while in Cuba in 1909. He was so taken with the recipe that, upon returning to the States, he introduced it to his friends behind the bar at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., and from there it spread like wildfire—albeit a really, painfully slow wildfire.

Information traveled slower back then, and for at least another decade the Daiquiri didn’t make it too far outside of Cuba and the Mid-Atlantic. But its momentum grew over time, and the use of lime juice (instead of Cox’s lemon) became the standard. By the time the roaring, Prohibition-fueled ’20s got underway, its position as a classic seemed all but in the bag. It first appeared in American literature in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise in 1920, and Hemingway sucked them down by the dozen at El Floridita in Havana. The latter seemed thoroughly smitten with the drink, going so far as to come up with a couple variations of his own. The Hemingway Daiquiri leaves out the sugar (as he was diabetic) and goes for a twist on the original citrus with grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur . He got his nickname “Papa Doble” for his habit of exclusively ordering them as doubles. The Frozen Daiquiri and World War Two As the drink grew more and more popular, it underwent some transformations.

The famed Cuban bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert at El Floridita was responsible for adding crushed ice to his Daiquiris in the 1930s, as advances in refrigeration technology made it easier to come by on the island. The trend caught on, and with the rise of Waring and Vitamix blenders in the latter half of the decade (high drama, we know), Middle America finally got its hands on the Frozen Daiquiri . Then, of course, came America’s entrance into the Second World War. Wartime rationing made it difficult to come by most distilled spirits, but thanks to President Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy, trade with Latin American nations remained largely unfettered. As a result, rum stepped in to fill the gap and subsequently skyrocketed in popularity—throughout the ’40s, ’50s, and beyond, Tiki bars and tropical drinks were all the rage, with the Frozen Daiquiri (and particularly the Strawberry Daiquiri ) squarely among them. People do certainly love to hate on it, though, and often for good reason.

Chucking fruit and booze into a blender isn’t exactly a great way to make a balanced cocktail, and over the decades the drink earned a reputation as a syrupy mess. Most of the time, you’d be better off pouring Bacardi into your gas-station slushie. It doesn’t have to be that way, though, and the original Frozen Daiquiri can be pretty phenomenal when it’s made with some subtlety. The Daiquiri’s Revival It wasn’t really until the ’90s that people thought about taking the Daiquiri seriously again. As the cocktail revival got underway in the States, historians and bartenders started working together to dig up original recipes for classics that hadn’t been seen in years. That’s not to say that the Daiquiri was anywhere close to some of the most obscure stuff they were looking for—it’s not like you couldn’t get some semblance of one at any all-inclusive beach resort—but the rise of the craft cocktail bar sparked popular interest in the unfrozen variety for the first time in decades. As the turn of the 21st century came and went, geeks like us became fascinated with the romantic stories of Hemingway, Roosevelt, and El Floridita.

And given that the US only very recently normalized relations with Cuba, for many of us there was the added mystique of drinking something from a (relatively) forbidden country. Today, it’s trivial in most major cities to find an old-school Daiquiri, and the world is a better place for it. It’s perfectly balanced, beautiful, and ripe for experimentation by seasoned bartenders, so you’re bound to come across some pretty wild variations if you look hard enough. Perhaps most importantly, though, it’s incredibly easy to make at home. So if you’ve ever been hesitant to try your hand at cocktailing, give the classic Daiquiri a shot. On second thought, make it a Doble.

Question: Where was the cocktail "daiquiri" invented?
Answer: Cuba