How to Make The Perfect Strawberry Daiquiri

We visited the lovely Lakeside Bar and Grill in Killyhevlin Hotel; Enniskillen and bartender Steve taught us How to Make The Perfect Strawberry Daiquiri, and we thought we would share it with you. The Strawberry Daiquiri is perfect for sitting by the pool with your feet up and relaxing on a hot summer day, and this is how to make it:

What You Need

• 500g strawberries, hulled
  200g ice
  100ml white rum
• 30ml sugar syrup and 30ml lime juice
• 1 strawberry, halved
  2 slices of limes
• 2 cocktail sticks

The How-To

1. Add 1-2 strawberries or 5-6 strawberries in a cocktail shaker if you use your blender. Give them a quick meddle.

2. Add 30ml of sugar syrup, 30ml of lime juice, and 100ml of white rum.

3. Add a dash of grenadine for extra sweetness and colour if you would like.

4. Final step! Give that a mix, pour it into your cocktail glass, and delight your taste with some fine winery.

History

Like most classic cocktails, the precise origin of the Daiquiri is a little murky, but this cocktail is better documented than most.

Cuba has a very complex past. Most people only know of it as a Cold War foe of the United States, a very foreign country only a hundred kilometres away from everything. It has been that way since Castro took power in the late 1950s.

First discovered by Christopher Columbus and claimed for Spain, this small island has been colonized by other countries for its entire history. It has a temperate climate, making it great for growing crops, and an excellent location for a stopping point after several months at sea. The United States began the Spanish-American War in April 1898 and defeated Spain by the middle of July. The country went through much devastation and turmoil in its infrastructure and land.

However, before that happened, when Spain allowed some flexibility in the colony’s trade, the floodgates opened, and money poured into the coffers. They were filled primarily by two different crops: tobacco and sugar. Tobacco was very easy to process. Sugar was not. A complex system was used to create sugar crystals, and the leftover molasses was a sticky mess to discard. This sets the backdrop for creating one of the finest cocktails in modern history: the Daiquiri.

Once again, it isn’t easy to know the circumstances surrounding the birth of the Daiquiri Cocktail. However, many agree on its creator, Jennings Stockton Cox, and its birthplace, the iron mines of Daiquiri in Cuba. Following the American Victory in the Spanish-American War, the US moved in to capitalize on the rich Cuban iron mines and Cox, working for the Baltimore-based Bethlehem Steel, led one of the first expeditions into the Sierra Maestra mountains close to the town of Daiquiri (see where this is going?) on the south-eastern shore. One night, while entertaining guests from the mainland, Cox runs out of Gin, but thankfully, due to generous rations, he has built up quite a stash of the local Bacardi Carta Blanca rum. So as not to expose the delicate constitutions of his guests to straight rum, Cox mixes it with lime juice and sugar, thus creating the Daiquiri.

This new cocktail remained within Cuba for some years because, at the same time, in 1900, the Cuba Libre cocktail (rum, lime, Coca-Cola) was created and became immediately famous, almost diminishing the Daiquiri’s identity and relevance. As if things weren’t already bad, the little town of Daiquiri was also hit by a plague epidemic in 1903.

Perpetuation

In 1916, an American-German chemist named Karl Grueneklee established a plantation in Cuba to produce concentrated lime juice. It was the type of lime that was made to be carried in a pocket. One of the fascinating selling points of his juice was the opportunity to make a Daiquiri cocktail whenever and wherever you wanted. “There is as fine a Daiquiri cocktail as anyone could want”, he said. Alas, the Daiquiri had to wait until the prohibition period in the USA to become famous, with tourists and bartenders flying to Cuba to drink alcohol and get snuggled at their convenience.

The Cuban bar Florida, which became The Floridita and nicknamed The Cocktails Cathedral, presented a book with four variations of Daiquiri in 1939. The same year, this bar was given as “The Cradle of the Daiquiri Cocktail” and proposed five cocktail variations. The bar claimed to have made 10 million Daiquiri. The success of this cocktail was so critical that an extraordinary rum was created: The Ron Daiquiri Coctelera by the Compania Ron Daiquiri S.A.

Why Is The Daiquiri So Popular?

“The Daiquiri, like the Old-Fashioned, deserves an even greater popularity than it now enjoys. For example, it is, in my opinion, vastly superior to the Manhattan. Yet, most bars sell many more Manhattans than Daiquiris.” – David Embury from his book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.

Textbooks

It was not until the 1930s that the Daiquiri leapt into the spotlight, courtesy of two of the most prominent writers of the era. Not much is said about F. Scott Fitzgerald regarding the cocktail. He was the first to put it as one of his novels, as it had a brief cameo in This Side of Paradise, written and published in 1920. Volumes have been written about the other author most associated with the Daiquiri, Ernest Hemingway. He had a profound impact on not only the cocktail’s popularity but also created his variation of it.

The Hemingway Daiquiri, or Papa Doble, was a variation of the Daiquiri he worked out while drinking at El Floridita. Unfortunately, Hemingway had diabetes, and the sugar did not agree with his system. To maintain the sweetness, he added grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur. He also doubled the amount of rum in the cocktail (thus adding the “doble” to the name). Consequently, he became associated with Cuba and its cocktails. He even wrote on the wall of La Bodeguita del Medio, “My mojito in La Bodeguita, My Daiquiri in El Floridita.”

In 1938, the Daiquiri appeared in a French mixology book, Cocktails, by Jean Lupoiu. In France, it is mentioned in some short fiction articles towards the end of the 1920s. In 1936, there was a massive article in the Figaro about the American presence in Cuba. The Daiquiri, El Presidente, and Mary Pickford were presented as the most famous cocktails.

After WWII, David Embury wrote about Daiquiri in his mixology book: “Why More Daiquiris are Not Sold: The Use of Inferior Rums and Improper Proportions”. For example, he highlights that the Cuban practice coming from Havana bars, like The Floridita and Sloppy Joe’s, imposed a variation with pineapple, whilst The Sevilla, The El Patio and the Hôtel Nacional Bar used inferior quality rums from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Lemon was also used more than lime as it was cheaper than lime, and it started to be overused in cocktails.

Admiral Lucius Johnson

In 1909, the USS Minnesota was touring the now decade-old battlegrounds of the Spanish-American War. Captain Charles H. Harlow went ashore at Guantanamo with then-junior medical officer Lucius Johnson in tow. Both of them soon met up with none other than Jennings Cox, who was more than happy to share his creation with them. Johnson was instantly smitten with the drink.

Returning to the United States with a stash of Cuban rum and Jenning’s recipe, Johnson soon instructed the bar staff at Washington D.C.’s Army and Navy Club on how to make his new favourite cocktail. The Daiquiri was such a hit that the bar (now named the Daiquiri Lounge) sports a plaque to honour the moment.

After the nation’s capital, Johnson introduced the drink to the University Club in Baltimore, Maryland. Gladly accepting the recipe but unwilling to leave well enough alone (we never do), the bartender insisted on adding bitters to the list of ingredients. His next posting was in San Francisco, where the Daiquiri wasn’t a hit and failed to become famous. Following that bump in the road, the Daiquiri’s tour continued into Honolulu and Guam.

Constante Ribalagiua

Flash forward a few years, and we come to Constante Ribalaigua Vert, aka El Rey de los Coteleros (King of the Cocktails) in Cuba. In his 40-year reign as head bartender and co-owner of the La Floridita bar, it is said that he squeezed 80 million limes for ten more than a million Daiquiris.

Modern Times

The 90s started the long return to handcrafted cocktails with freshly squeezed juices. Bartenders were given new options by using liqueurs and bitters for flavour over processed sour mixes. Plenty of lemons, limes, and sugar replaced bottles of sour mix. Bars began to infuse their own spirits, create specialized simple syrups, and return to the delightfully heady days of exploring the flavours inherent in spirits.

Old became new again, and there was an appreciation for what the bartenders created with simple ingredients. Like the Martini and Gin, the Daiquiri is still working to lose its sordid past as a party cocktail. It is one of the elites in cocktail history. Many scholars and historians see it as one of the pillars of the cocktail world. It deserves that reputation. It is one of the few rum drinks that stands so tall in history (the Mai Tai being another one) and one of the few sours with its own identity. There has been some sort of variation of rum, lime, sugar, and water since it was the raw spirit rumbullion. It is also one of the few classic, old-school cocktails that does not involve bitters (martinis were initially made with orange bitters).

Cuba was the epicentre for creating a cocktail that was an instant classic. The blending of lime, rum, and sugar was made to go together. It was concocted when rum was relatively unknown, and Cuba was starting to feel a little freedom. Before the US embargo in the 1950s, tourists were flocking there for the cooling effect of a Daiquiri in warm tropical breezes while sitting on a beach and reading Across the River and Into the Trees. The Daiquiri is a perfect summer drink, and now is the ideal time to go out and rediscover it.