From Havana to Edinburgh: The Classic Daiquiri's Journey Through Time

The Daiquiri cocktail is a legendary drink that has come to be a favourite for many. But unlike other famous cocktails, there is less speculation and gossip about the Daiquiri's origins. This is probably because its genesis tale barely had time to slip through the cracks as it moved from a drunken late-night improvisation to a Beltway favourite in what seemed like fifteen minutes (actually closer to a decade, but hey, who's counting).
Similar cocktail recipes have popped up in different eras and locations, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly when a drink was first made. In the case of the Daiquiri, however, a very evident sequence of events links its creation to its meteoric rise in popularity. And while its origins may be clear, they remain no less captivating.
Photo by Aram Diseño: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-ice-in-the-drinking-glass-7259044/
The Daiquiri's Wartime Origins
The Daiquiri can be traced back to April 21, 1898, when the United States blockaded Cuba as part of its intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. Yes, indeed. It all began with a war.
Theodore Roosevelt, who was the assistant secretary of the navy at the time, and his Rough Riders touched down on Daiquiri beach in southeast Cuba. After their successful campaign against the Spanish, the U.S. gained significant influence over Cuban affairs through the Platt Amendment, prompting a wave of American businesses to flood the region in pursuit of the economic opportunities left in Spain's wake.
The quick influx of American capital into Cuban agricultural and mining projects attracted a large number of professionals, including engineers, farmers, and others. It was during this time that Jennings S. Cox, working as a mining engineer, stumbled into the drink's history by accident. Cox had people over for an excellent party at his house close to Daiquiri, but he ran out of gin. Heading to the nearby market, he sought for more, but unfortunately, he could only find rum.
Cox, seemingly worried about his American visitors' sensitive palates, decided to mix the rum with sugar, lemon juice, and other ingredients to produce a punch. As a result, the first Daiquiri was born.
Rum, however, has been watered down with sugar and citrus juice ever since its arrival in the Caribbean. This was mostly done to make it more drinkable, since it was essentially the 'bathroom booze' of its day. Not being a native, Cox was likely unaware of this idea; he simply added sugar and ice to a well-known local drink, gave it a new name, and inadvertently secured his place in the cocktail's history.
From Cuba to America
Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a medical officer in the United States Navy, met the Daiquiri in Cuba in 1909. He became so smitten with the beverage that upon his return to the US, he served it to his friends at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., where it became a hit.
The Daiquiri didn't make its literary debut in America until 1920, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, a delay largely due to the slower spread of word-of-mouth at the time. During his time in Havana, Ernest Hemingway became a fan of the drink, eventually inspiring his own version: the Hemingway Daiquiri, made with grapefruit juice, maraschino liqueur, and no sugar, since he suffered from diabetes. When the Kennedys started sailing about half a century later, it became their favourite beverage.
The Daiquiri in Modern Times
The Daiquiri's adaptability and refreshing flavour have kept it popular throughout the years. It can be found on cocktail lists all throughout the world, from exclusive nightclubs to laid-back beach bars.
Many contemporary bartenders are reworking the traditional Daiquiri recipe, adding their own spin while paying honour to its roots. With artisanal rums and freshly squeezed juices, they are taking the cocktail to the next level, making it a beloved among cocktail enthusiasts.
The Original Daiquiri Evolves
There have been several versions of the Daiquiri, as is the case with most cocktails. A bartender at El Floridita in Old Havana, Constantino Ribailagua, came up with three variants of the recipe after it made its way from Daiquiri to Havana. To keep things organised, he numbered them, reserving #1 for the classic original.
Daiquiri #2
The #2, which Constantino created in 1915 at El Floridita, consists of Bacardi Carta Blanca, Triple Sec Liqueur, lime juice, orange juice, syrup, and lime juice. The mild orange flavour adds a touch of summer and gives it a new twist.
Daiquiri #3
With a little less sourness and alcohol intensity, Daiquiri #3 evokes thoughts of The Hemingway Daiquiri, also known as Papa Doble. It contains Bacardi Gold, lime juice, simple syrup, grapefruit juice, and maraschino liqueur in moderate amounts. Since this cocktail was probably around when Hemingway came to Cuba, Constantino most likely found it a good starting point when creating a version tailored to the writer's tastes.
Daiquiri #4
This version is comparable to #3 but without the grapefruit's sourness. For those who like a milder combination of sweet and sour tastes, this straightforward recipe is ideal. It combines Bacardi Gold, maraschino liqueur, lime juice, chilled water, and simple syrup.
Traditional Daiquiri Recipe
Ingredients
2 oz (60ml) White Rum
3/4 oz (20ml) simple syrup
1 oz (30ml) freshly squeezed lime juice
Lime wheel
Preparation and Serving
Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice and add all the ingredients.
Give it a quick shake for 20 to 30 seconds.
Pour the concoction into a cocktail glass after straining.
Toss in a lime wheel or twist for garnish, if you want.
Why Shake?
The recipe calls for the drink to be shaken, and for good reason. Shaking chills the cocktail while allowing the ice to slightly dilute it, adding volume and enhancing the overall flavour. More importantly, citrus juices like lime don't easily blend when simply stirred, so shaking ensures a smoother, well-integrated drink.
Conclusion
The Daiquiri's meteoric rise to fame from its humble beginnings in a Cuban village is proof of its timeless allure. Whether you like it straight up or with a contemporary touch, this drink has an air of understated elegance. Therefore, when drinking a Daiquiri, pause and think about the many cultures that go into making it.
Like this:
Like

Related

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Edinburgh Reporter

9 hours ago

• Edinburgh Reporter

From Havana to Edinburgh: The Classic Daiquiri's Journey Through Time

The Daiquiri cocktail is a legendary drink that has come to be a favourite for many. But unlike other famous cocktails, there is less speculation and gossip about the Daiquiri's origins. This is probably because its genesis tale barely had time to slip through the cracks as it moved from a drunken late-night improvisation to a Beltway favourite in what seemed like fifteen minutes (actually closer to a decade, but hey, who's counting). Similar cocktail recipes have popped up in different eras and locations, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly when a drink was first made. In the case of the Daiquiri, however, a very evident sequence of events links its creation to its meteoric rise in popularity. And while its origins may be clear, they remain no less captivating. Photo by Aram Diseño: The Daiquiri's Wartime Origins The Daiquiri can be traced back to April 21, 1898, when the United States blockaded Cuba as part of its intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. Yes, indeed. It all began with a war. Theodore Roosevelt, who was the assistant secretary of the navy at the time, and his Rough Riders touched down on Daiquiri beach in southeast Cuba. After their successful campaign against the Spanish, the U.S. gained significant influence over Cuban affairs through the Platt Amendment, prompting a wave of American businesses to flood the region in pursuit of the economic opportunities left in Spain's wake. The quick influx of American capital into Cuban agricultural and mining projects attracted a large number of professionals, including engineers, farmers, and others. It was during this time that Jennings S. Cox, working as a mining engineer, stumbled into the drink's history by accident. Cox had people over for an excellent party at his house close to Daiquiri, but he ran out of gin. Heading to the nearby market, he sought for more, but unfortunately, he could only find rum. Cox, seemingly worried about his American visitors' sensitive palates, decided to mix the rum with sugar, lemon juice, and other ingredients to produce a punch. As a result, the first Daiquiri was born. Rum, however, has been watered down with sugar and citrus juice ever since its arrival in the Caribbean. This was mostly done to make it more drinkable, since it was essentially the 'bathroom booze' of its day. Not being a native, Cox was likely unaware of this idea; he simply added sugar and ice to a well-known local drink, gave it a new name, and inadvertently secured his place in the cocktail's history. From Cuba to America Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a medical officer in the United States Navy, met the Daiquiri in Cuba in 1909. He became so smitten with the beverage that upon his return to the US, he served it to his friends at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., where it became a hit. The Daiquiri didn't make its literary debut in America until 1920, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, a delay largely due to the slower spread of word-of-mouth at the time. During his time in Havana, Ernest Hemingway became a fan of the drink, eventually inspiring his own version: the Hemingway Daiquiri, made with grapefruit juice, maraschino liqueur, and no sugar, since he suffered from diabetes. When the Kennedys started sailing about half a century later, it became their favourite beverage. The Daiquiri in Modern Times The Daiquiri's adaptability and refreshing flavour have kept it popular throughout the years. It can be found on cocktail lists all throughout the world, from exclusive nightclubs to laid-back beach bars. Many contemporary bartenders are reworking the traditional Daiquiri recipe, adding their own spin while paying honour to its roots. With artisanal rums and freshly squeezed juices, they are taking the cocktail to the next level, making it a beloved among cocktail enthusiasts. The Original Daiquiri Evolves There have been several versions of the Daiquiri, as is the case with most cocktails. A bartender at El Floridita in Old Havana, Constantino Ribailagua, came up with three variants of the recipe after it made its way from Daiquiri to Havana. To keep things organised, he numbered them, reserving #1 for the classic original. Daiquiri #2 The #2, which Constantino created in 1915 at El Floridita, consists of Bacardi Carta Blanca, Triple Sec Liqueur, lime juice, orange juice, syrup, and lime juice. The mild orange flavour adds a touch of summer and gives it a new twist. Daiquiri #3 With a little less sourness and alcohol intensity, Daiquiri #3 evokes thoughts of The Hemingway Daiquiri, also known as Papa Doble. It contains Bacardi Gold, lime juice, simple syrup, grapefruit juice, and maraschino liqueur in moderate amounts. Since this cocktail was probably around when Hemingway came to Cuba, Constantino most likely found it a good starting point when creating a version tailored to the writer's tastes. Daiquiri #4 This version is comparable to #3 but without the grapefruit's sourness. For those who like a milder combination of sweet and sour tastes, this straightforward recipe is ideal. It combines Bacardi Gold, maraschino liqueur, lime juice, chilled water, and simple syrup. Traditional Daiquiri Recipe Ingredients 2 oz (60ml) White Rum 3/4 oz (20ml) simple syrup 1 oz (30ml) freshly squeezed lime juice Lime wheel Preparation and Serving Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice and add all the ingredients. Give it a quick shake for 20 to 30 seconds. Pour the concoction into a cocktail glass after straining. Toss in a lime wheel or twist for garnish, if you want. Why Shake? The recipe calls for the drink to be shaken, and for good reason. Shaking chills the cocktail while allowing the ice to slightly dilute it, adding volume and enhancing the overall flavour. More importantly, citrus juices like lime don't easily blend when simply stirred, so shaking ensures a smoother, well-integrated drink. Conclusion The Daiquiri's meteoric rise to fame from its humble beginnings in a Cuban village is proof of its timeless allure. Whether you like it straight up or with a contemporary touch, this drink has an air of understated elegance. Therefore, when drinking a Daiquiri, pause and think about the many cultures that go into making it. Like this: Like Related

Spectator

a day ago

• Spectator

My campaign to bring back real life

A new book by an American writer, Christine Rosen, details the way in which we are losing touch with the real world: the one we evolved in, as opposed to the virtual one. All the scrolling and texting means we're forgetting the look and feel of life unmediated by screens. The book is called The Extinction of Experience, and if we get more anxious year by year, then it's not just wars or the cost of living, Rosen suggests, but because we're grieving for the real world, whether we know it or not. I definitely know it. I'm Gen X, so I grew up without the internet, yet like other members of my generation now find myself caught in the smartphone itrap, dependent and resentful. It's a proof of Rosen's point that my friends and I increasingly find ourselves reminiscing about our pre-smartphone reality-based childhoods, like refugees remembering a country left long ago. We recall the endless waiting with no way of knowing how long the wait would be, and the various means we used to pass the endless time. We became extremely involved with the very near environment. We examined paving stones. We peered into cracks and picked satisfying paint flakes from walls. In the car, we misted the glass with our germy breath and raced the raindrops. We chewed paper; bit our own forearms, inspecting the little dented marks; spent hours face-down on lawns, studying grass. If you'd asked us back then, which no-body did, we'd have said we were bored to death and that the extinction of this sort of experience could only be a blessing. But we lived in constant communion not with a touchscreen but with the close-up real world, and in retrospect it was sort of wonderful. There's been a lot written about the disastrous effect of smartphones on our private lives, what you miss when you chat, even date, via a screen. But just as disturbing, says Rosen, is the extinction of experience from public life: the lack of acknowledgement that we're all here in the same space. I'm a slack parent in most ways, but a fanatical enforcer of that little wave of gratitude a pedestrian gives a car which stops for them at a zebra crossing. This gesture is the bedrock of civilisation, I reckon, and there's hell to pay when my son forgets. But it's a dying convention. Barely one in five passers-by now gives the wave. And almost no one on the street looks at each other any more. 'Civil inattention,' Rosen calls it. I've been trying, just for fun, to make eye contact with the twentysomething baristas in the cafés round my way – the very serious purveyors of impeccable flat whites. They hate it. Their eyeballs slide sideways and widen with terror. Smartphone-induced, contact-avoidant anxiety. Or could be that they just think I'm dangerously insane? What happens to public life, and what happens to civilisation, when we've sunk so deep into our separate, virtual worlds that we feel no sense of comradeship with the humans right next to us? Rosen thinks there's a terrible price to be paid. 'Our use of technology has fundamentally changed not just our awareness in public spaces but our sense of duty to others,' she writes. 'Engaged with the glowing screens in front of us rather than with the people around us, we often don't notice what is going on.' Worse: we don't care. In 2019 a man violently attacked a 78-year-old woman on the New York subway. No one intervened, but all manner of people whipped out their phones, filmed the fun event and shared it online, where it was viewed more than ten million times. 'It was not long ago that witnessing the death by suicide of another human being would have registered as a traumatic event,' says Rosen. 'But now we read stories about a woman in New York who purposely used a suicidal man on the bridge as a backdrop for a selfie.' Police in America and the UK have had to issue statements begging people who witness an assault to call for help before they start to record it. If I could, I'd like to get a copy of Rosen's book to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, proud father to ChatGPT, and one of the leaders in the great global AI race. Last week Altman addressed the world on the subject of the coming AI apocalypse, the point at which computers overtake us in intelligence and the world is forever transformed. 'In still very important ways, the 2030s are likely going to be wildly different from any time that has come before,' he wrote. 'We are building a brain for the world… We do not know how far beyond human-level intelligence we can go, but we are about to find out.' Altman sought to reassure us normies that human life will remain sacrosanct and special, even when the virtual world dominates the real. 'People will still love their families, express their creativity, play games and swim in lakes.' Swim in lakes? I could spend a while pondering the insight this gives into Altman's mind. How many people does he think live near lakes? But the most interesting part was the Panglossian conclusion: 'There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand… people have a long-term important and curious advantage over AI: we are hard-wired to care about other people and what they think and do, and we don't care very much about machines.' Altman stands to gain unimaginable power if his company dominates the field. He knows that the rise of AI will submerge us all even further in virtual reality and that the joyful, messy, real-life experiences we crave will be ever more elusive. I wonder if he's considered, though, that his 'world brain' might spell the end of the very quality he thinks makes us most human.

Reuters

2 days ago

• Reuters

Explainer: What caused the Iberian power outage and what happens next?

LONDON, June 18 (Reuters) - Spain's government and its grid operator have issued separate findings into the causes that led to the massive blackout across Spain and Portugal on April 28, which caused gridlock in cities and left thousands stranded on trains and in elevators across the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish government said in a report on Tuesday that Spain's grid operator Redeia ( opens new tab miscalculated the correct mix of energy in the system. The government also blamed some conventional power plants, or thermal power plants using coal, gas and nuclear, for failing to help maintain an appropriate voltage level and as a result, the grid was unable to cope with a surge in voltage that triggered a cascade of power plant disconnections, ultimately leading to the outage. Voltage - the force that drives electric current - must be kept within a safe range to maintain grid stability. Redeia said on Wednesday that a surge in voltage was the immediate cause of the outage but blamed it on conventional power plants failing to control the voltage level. It pointed instead to anomalies in the disconnection of power plants on April 28 and an unexpected spike in electricity demand from the transport network. Redeia rejected the claim that its energy mix miscalculation was a key factor. Grid operators typically use a raft of tools to ensure power systems have the right frequency, voltage and supply to keep them stable. The government report said the number of generators the grid had available to provide voltage control on April 28 was lower than it had in previous weeks and that not all units that should have responded did so as expected. The companies operating the plants that failed to ensure the proper voltage controls have not been named and Redeia's report also did not identify them. Spain's Energy Minister Sara Aagesen told a news briefing in Madrid that the grid operator did not have enough capacity to regulate voltage. However, Redeia's operations chief Concha Sanchez said on Wednesday that based on the grid's calculations the grid had planned adequate voltage support, but some plants did not respond as expected. No. Both the government and Redeia said renewable energy sources were not responsible for the blackout. Spain is one of Europe's biggest producers of renewable energy and has a high share of solar power, which accounted for 59% of the country's electricity at the time of the blackout. "Had conventional power plants done their job in controlling the voltage there would have been no blackout," Redeia's Sanchez said. At the time of the outage, Spain was also exporting power to France and Portugal. Energy Minister Aagesen explained that at 12:03 p.m., an "atypical" oscillation was detected in the power system. In response, the grid operator implemented standard control procedures, including reducing electricity exports to France. While these actions successfully mitigated the oscillation, they also caused a secondary effect: an increase in voltage, according to the report. The government said on Tuesday it will propose measures to strengthen the grid and improve voltage control. It also plans to better integrate the peninsula with the European grid, it said. Redeia said it will issue its full report later on Wednesday. The government report will go to the European Network of Transmission System Operators which is doing its own inquiry. Any parties found responsible for the blackout may be liable for losses incurred during the outage, subject to any legal action.