Message 13431 of 20656 in Recipe Exchange

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Basically a Daiquiri is a rum sour, in fact it's made with rum, fresh lime 
juice ( forget about Rose's!) and sugar syrup. If it's  made with , say gin, 
it becomes a gin sour , not a gin daiquiri, very easy!!
 a litle history about Daiquiri

Daiquiri 

History credits a gringo with creating the Daiquiri, but we dare to dispute 
this claim. Our guess is that Cuban residents enjoyed this cocktail long 
before American engineer Jennings Cox stepped onto the island. Cox was sent to 
Daiquiri, a small town on the east coast of Cuba, to work in the iron mines 
with a group of thirsty comrades. The group often enjoyed the refreshing rum 
and lime beverage after a hard day's work, and Mr. Cox named the drink after 
the town (though some accounts also credit a Harry E. Stout). Cox's chance 
acquaintance, Admiral Lucius Johnson, took the recipe and loads of rum back to 
the mainland, where he introduced the drink to the Army and Navy Club in 
Washington, DC. 

Further accentuating the Daiquiri's imperialist past is the role played by the 
prince of presidential style himself: JFK. The Daiquiri was the president's 
preferred before-dinner drink. This factoid, when revealed to the American 
public, brought the Daiquiri fame and popularity rivaled only by the Martini. 
Regrettably, the Daiquiri's stature - and its good name - have suffered since 
the emergence of TGI Friday's happy hour, where the drink has been promoted as 
an alcoholic Slurpee. The true, more subtle frozen Daiquiri was invented at La 
Florida (later called the Floridita) in Havana, reputedly inspired by Ernest 
Hemingway. 

When making this drink, we try to follow in the footsteps of the bartender 
first credited with flash blending [569 KB .mov] this drink: Constante 
Ribalagua - aka El Rey de los Coteleros or the Cocktail King - who mixed at La 
Florida when it was called La Catedral del Daiquiri, or The Temple of the 
Daiquiri. Mr. Ribalagua's title is well deserved, as David A. Embury points 
out in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, first published in 1948: "His limes were 
gently squeezed with his fingers lest even a drop of the bitter oil from the 
peel get into the drink; the cocktails were mixed (but not overmixed).... The 
stinging cold drink was strained through a fine sieve into the glass so that 
not one tiny piece of ice remained in it. No smallest detail was overlooked in 
achieving the flawless perfection of the drink." 

The Daiquiri's classic recipe of a jigger of rum, a teaspoon of simple syrup, 
and an ounce of lime juice is deceptively simple. Too much rum, and the taste 
becomes overpowering; too much lime, and it's bitter and sharp; too much 
sugar, and you might as well toss it out. 

The first literary mention of the Daiquiri was in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This 
Side of Paradise, published in 1920. The novel is a fine reminder that this 
seemingly cathartic potion is best sipped and mixed with restraint: In a 
section of the book called "The Devil," a character orders a double Daiquiri, 
then changes his order to four, which he regrets when the old man he sees 
turns out to be a "purple zebra," a figment of his sodden imagination. 

Dom Costa

De gustibus non disputandum est!!