Cocktail · Medium strength
Daiquiri
Rum, lime, sugar. Three ingredients, zero places to hide.
How to order it: Not the frozen kind. Hemingway approved; bartenders judge you kindly.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2 oz white rum
- 1 oz lime juice
- ¾ oz simple syrup
- Shake; strain into a coupe
- Lime wheel
The story
Credit traditionally goes to Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer working near the village of Daiquirí outside Santiago de Cuba around 1898, who — the story goes — ran out of gin while entertaining and reached for the local rum, lime, and sugar. Whether he invented the combination or merely named what Cubans already drank is a fair question. What's undisputed is its perfection by Constantino Ribalaigua at Havana's El Floridita, where Ernest Hemingway drank them in punishing quantities. Slush machines nearly destroyed its reputation; the craft revival restored it as the bartender's truth serum. The Daiquiri endures because three ingredients leave nowhere to hide — and nothing to forgive.
Modern variations
The Daiquiri cast a long shadow. These pours carry the torch:
Adjacent pours