The Original Daiquiri

Those who know me, know that I love a bit of cocktail history. I don't know why, I think I get a kick out of  knowing that the cocktails we drink today are still being made and served the exact same way that they were originally hundreds of years ago. In the last 200, 100, even 50 years the world has changed in so many ways. Everything has advanced and come so far, however there are a certain few cocktails out there that haven't changed a bit, the original daiquiri is one of those. Now i know what your going to say, "But Dave, the daiquiri has changed, It's now made in many different flavours and pumped out of big slushy dispense machines". This is true, there are other types of daiquiri's around. There is nothing wrong with strawberry, mango, pineapple, orange daiquiri's, but for traditionalists like myself, the original daiquiri is the only one for me.

This simple mix of lime juice, sugar and white rum was created in the small Cuban mining town of "Daiquiri" (near Santiago) around 1905. An American mining engineer named Jennings Cox asked the barman for this drink after the bar ran out of gin. Even though this is said to be when the first daiquiri was made, it is likely that the Cubans were drinking this concoction well before Cox arrived, as Cuba was a main producer of lime, sugar cane and rum at the time, but no one can be sure.

History aside, lets make this classic cocktail. Start with a shaker, squeeze 30ml of fresh lime juice, add a teaspoon of caster sugar (or 30ml of sugar syrup, which ever you'd prefer) and lastly, 60ml of white rum. Personally i prefer to use Bacardi as my white rum, but you use your preferred rum.  Add ice to your shaker, shake then strain into a chilled martini glass.

When you drink this, take half a second to appreciate it's history and it's origins. If if wasn't for this cocktail, we would not have many other classics that were to follow in years to come.

In a shaker:

30ml Lime Juice

30ml Sugar syrup (or a teaspoon of caster sugar)

60ml White Rum

Add Ice, Shake and Strain into a chilled martini glass