How to make the perfect Daiquiri

The Old Man and the Daiquiri

Ernest Hemingway made it popular in the 1930s. JFK described it as his favourite tipple in the 1960s. And there's still nothing fuddy-duddy about the Daiquiri, discovers Joanne Gibson.

 

The famous El Floridita bar in Santiago, Cuba, may have been the birthplace of a number of rum-based cocktails but not for nothing was its nickname El Catedral del Daiquiri.

It was here, in the 1930s, that legendary bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert first blended rum, sugar and lime juice with shaved ice, tossing them back and forth between two cocktail shakers, to create the frozen Daiquiri. He also made a sugarless version - including half a grapefruit and six drops of maraschino liqueur - for his most famous customer. Ernest "Papa" Hemingway could apparently wade through a dozen of these in one sitting, at least if he was in his regular seat by 10 am (which he mostly was).

If running late or in less scintillating company than that of Jean-Paul Sartre or Tennessee Williams, there was always the Papa Dobles. "An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools," he once observed.

But locals had no doubt been making liquor out of sugarcane, growing limes, and knocking them back together forever - and British sailors had been given a daily ration of rum, water, lemon or lime juice and sugar known as "grog" since the mid-1700s.

A common drink across the Caribbean, it became the acquired taste of a group of American mining engineers stationed near the Cuban seaside town of Daiquiri during the first few years of the 20th century (some say when Jennings Cox, general manager of the Spanish American Iron Co, ran out of gin while entertaining guests).

Introduced to the Army Navy Club in Washington DC by Admiral Lucius Johnson in 1909, the Daiquiri had become so fashionable by the 1940s that David Augustus Embury included it as one of only six basic cocktails in his 1948 bible, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, along with the Martini, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Side Car and Jack Rose. But while "old fashioned" now sums up most of those, the Daiquiri remains as sexy as ever - and Embury's guidelines (in a new edition published as recently as 2008) are as valid as ever when it comes to making a good one.

For starters, a cocktail can only possibly be as good as its ingredients, so in the case of a Daiquiri it is vital to use a high-quality white rum (preferably not a big brand that has had most of its flavour removed to appeal to vodka drinkers...) and freshly squeezed limes. It should also have no more than the slightest hint of sweetness, or it will dull rather than sharpen the appetite (a cocktail in the classic sense being a pre-dinner drink).

Embury advocates a ratio of 1:2:8 for "sour type cocktails" including the Daiquiri, and the recipe that follows is his version.

Daiquiri

8 parts white Cuban rum
2 parts lime juice
1 part simple syrup (made from 2 parts sugar
dissolved in 1 part boiling water, then cooled)

Shake with lots of finely crushed ice and strain well into a chilled cocktail glass.