Daiquirí, Cuba · c. 1898
Daiquiri
Three ingredients, nowhere to hide.
- Created by
- Jennings Cox
- Tastes like
- Bright, dry, clean — rum with the lights on
- Glass
- Chilled coupe
- Garnish
- Lime wheel, or nothing at all
Ingredients
- 2 ozwhite rum (Cuban or Spanish-style light)
- 3/4 ozfresh lime juice
- 1/2 ozsimple syrup (1:1)
Method
- 1.Put a coupe in the freezer while you work.
- 2.Combine the rum, lime, and syrup in a shaker with plenty of ice.
- 3.Shake hard for 12 to 15 seconds, until the tin frosts over.
- 4.Double-strain into the chilled coupe. No ice in the glass, no garnish required.
Jennings Cox was an American mining engineer working the iron deposits outside Santiago de Cuba in the last years of the nineteenth century. The drink he made from local rum, lime, and sugar took its name from Daiquirí — the beach and the mine, not the man.
It reached the United States in 1909 by way of Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, who tasted it in Cuba and started serving it at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. From there it spread through officers' messes and hotel bars, picked up a blender somewhere along the way, and spent most of the twentieth century as a strawberry slush machine on a cruise ship.
Made properly, it is the most exposed drink in the canon. Three ingredients, no bitters, no spice, nothing to cover a mistake.
On the record
The story that Cox improvised the drink after running out of gin is bar folklore with no primary source. Rum, lime, and sugar had been sailors' medicine in the Caribbean for two centuries before anyone gave the combination a name — Cox's contribution was the name.
Variation: The Hemingway (Papa Doble)
Constantino Ribalaigua Vert built it for Hemingway at El Floridita in Havana: no sugar, plus 1/2 oz grapefruit juice and 1/4 oz maraschino liqueur. Bracing, and not for everyone.
Thatch note
This is the bar exam. Order a Daiquiri and you will know within one sip whether the room squeezes limes or pours sour mix out of a gun.