Daiquiri
White rum, fresh lime, sugar. The drink Hemingway requested twice as strong.
Ingredients
- 2 oz white rum (Plantation 3 Stars or Havana Club 3 work well)
- 1 oz fresh lime juice
- 0.75 oz simple syrup (1:1)
- Cubed ice, for shaking
- Lime wheel, for garnish
Method
- Add the rum, lime juice, and simple syrup to a shaker filled two-thirds with cubed ice.
- Shake hard for 12 to 15 seconds — the drink wants real chill and dilution.
- Double-strain into a chilled coupe through a fine-mesh strainer.
- Garnish with a thin lime wheel on the rim.
Flavor
The cleanest cocktail in the canon. Bright lime, restrained sweetness, gentle rum funk underneath. Test a bartender by ordering one; if it arrives blue and frozen they have failed.
History
Created in Daiquirí, a beachside village near Santiago, Cuba, around 1898 by American engineer Jennings Cox. The drink was the regular at El Floridita in Havana, where Constantino Ribalaigua refined the recipe in the early 1900s and served the drink to a regular named Ernest Hemingway, who took the version known as the Papa Doble: double rum, no sugar, grapefruit juice and maraschino added.
The blender-and-strawberry-syrup frozen daiquiri is a different drink in the same way that a Slurpee is a different drink from filtered water. The original is shaken, served up, and contains exactly three ingredients.
Pairs With
- Ceviche
- Grilled shrimp
- Cuban sandwich
Photograph your liquor cabinet. Cabinet Cocktails identifies every bottle and tells you every cocktail you can craft right now — no missing ingredients, no fake fridge raids.
🍸 Scan My Cabinet