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.
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.
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, 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 El 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 double frozen daiquiris in one sitting.
This earned the cocktail a permanent spot on Floridita's menu as the "E.
Hemmingway [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.
Read More at http://www.eater.com/drinks/2016/5/12/11327350/daiquiri-cocktail-recipe-rum-lime-cuban-drink
