Quick, what’s a DAIQUIRI?
Did you answer a mountain range in Cuba? Well according the legend, in the late 1890s an American engineer came up with the now-famous rum drink while entertaining guests at his place in the aforementioned mountain range. It was a time when everyone in Cuba could really use a good stiff drink. You see, the Americans forcibly removed control of the island from Spain and tensions were running high. The war that ensued was the Spanish-American War. It’s not America’s most memorable war. Fortunately the cocktail lasted longer than the war.
But what about that story? Could an American in Cuba really have been the first one to think of putting rum and lime together? Well, that doesn’t seem likely. Rum and lime belong together. In fact rum had been considered the ‘milk of Cuba’ long before American miners landed there. Besides, British sailors in the Caribbean were given a ration of lime to combat scurvy. I am sure more than one of them thought to mix that lime with the local liquor!
But it does seem plausible that the Daiquiri caught on in Cuba. I can buy that part of the story. Thanks to a bar called El Floridito, Havana became a Daiquiri Mecca– because legendary barman Constantino Ribalaigua elevated this simple concoction to perfection with his intuitively deft balance of sweet rum and sour lime. A simple but splendiferous combination!
