The Old Man and the Daiquiri

A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, a flavored daiquiri. If you thought we were playing "one doesn't belong", you'd be wrong. In this week’s post, we’ll talk about why these three things actually all belong together, and why you should be drinking more daiquiris!

The Hemingway daiquiri - Photo by Laurie Geis

Let me introduce you to Andy, my niece Sara’s husband! In addition to being one of our men in blue, Andy also served in the Army and deployed to Iraq – he’s the real deal! Also, he’s an amateur craft cocktail master, and knows a ton about spirits, tiki bars, and cocktails writ large. I asked Andy to come on my blog this week as a guest to write about one of his favorite drinks – the daiquiri! Here’s what he had to say!

Enjoying some wine out on our lanai with Andy

In addition to being a Nobel prize winning author, Ernest Hemingway (or "Papa", as he preferred) was a heavy drinker throughout most of his life. Among his favorite libations was the daiquiri. Rumor has it he would have as many as 15 in one sitting!

There are a lot of twists on the daiquiri. Some are good, some are great, and some are terrible (think TGI Friday's). One of my favorites is the Hemingway Daiquiri, named after Papa himself.

In 1940, Hemingway and his (third) wife, Martha, purchased a home outside Havana, Cuba. It would remain his home until 1960, when his health required him to move back to the United States. During that time (and before), Hemingway did a considerable amount of drinking at El Floridita Bar in downtown Havana. When Papa tried his first daiquiri he said, "I would prefer without sugar and double rum" and the Hemingway Daiquiri was born.

Or at least, that's what Hemingway would like you to think. In reality, an incredibly similar beverage was already being served up at El Floridita under the name "Daiquiri No. 3 (Floridita Special)" and was one of five daiquiris on the menu. The bar's main tender, Constantino Ribalaigua Vert put pen to paper and wrote Floridita Cocktails, documenting the cocktails of his bar. Included in the book are daiquiris one through five, but also an "E. Hemingway" Special. So, let's get into it.

The original recipe for the "E. Hemingway" Special is as follows:

• 2 ounces Bacardi

• 1 teaspoon grapefruit juice

• 1 teaspoon maraschino (a liqueur distilled from maraschino cherries – the most popular brand and my favorite is Luxardo)

• The juice of 1/2 lime (the original writing actually says lemon; I'll touch on that more later)

• Ice

Shake well and serve frappe (meaning with ice and/or frozen).

As mentioned earlier, the "Daiquiri #3 (Floridita Special)" is very similar. The only difference is that it includes a small measure of sugar and is not served frappe. Lots of bartenders have tweaked the recipe over the years and the "Special" has been dropped, leaving us with the more modern, "Hemingway Daiquiri". Here's my favorite recipe:

• 2 ounces white rum (my favorite is Plantation 3 Star which is a blended rum, lightly aged, and packed with flavor)

• 1/4-ounce grapefruit juice

• 1/4-ounce maraschino

• 3/4-ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

• 1/4-ounce simple syrup

Add ice and shake until chilled, then strain into a coup glass and serve.

This is probably one of, if not my favorite, cocktail. One of my favorite things about it is the aroma; to me it smells like walking through a field of fresh cut grapefruit if that exists.

A quick note about the lemon/lime thing. While researching this drink, I found the original recipe book posted online, which calls for lemon juice. I thought this was strange, since I've never seen that before. I went a little deeper and was shaken to my very core to find that when the daiquiri recipe was first written down by American engineer Jennings Cox in the late 1800s, the recipe also called for lemon juice! Well, I have found a few sources that may settle this great lemon/lime discrepancy. When Constantino and Jennings were in Cuba at that time, limes were probably referred to as "green lemons" and yellow lemons were fairly rare. Which is possibly why neither Constantino nor Jennings felt the need to specify "green lemon".

Either way, I hope you try this drink and, if you do, I really hope you like it as much as Hemingway did. But don't have 15 of them!

Thanks to Andy for the above post – if he’s willing, we’ll bring him back periodically to help educate us all on more craft cocktails we should know about and be drinking!