Friday, June 16, 2006

The Daiquiri


It's hard to nail down the classics. The differences can be subtle, and the research can take you far and wide. The picture above illustrates that fact. That's me researching the daiquiri. When you order one, you never know what you're going to get. The key to a simple classic like this is getting the proportions just right.

Field work is one thing, but I've been reading up on the various versions of this classic.

Burke's Complete Cocktail & Drinking Recipes (1934):
1 glass light rum (2 oz.)
2 teaspoons powdered sugar
juice of 1/2 lime
if desired, 3 dashes grenadine

Except for that bit at the end about the grenadine, this is quite a standard recipe. It's quite similar to what you'd find today in Wondrich's Esquire Drinks or Gary Regan's Joy of Mixology. If you do add the grenadine, I think it stops being a Daiquiri and becomes a Bacardi Cocktail, Country Club Style (see Bullock's Ideal Bartender over at slakethirst).

Then you see a Bacardi Cocktail actually listed as a Daiquiri in
Patrick Gavin Duffy's Mixer's Manual (1940):
1 jigger bacardi
2 dashes grenadine
juice of 1 lime

There is standard version in Embury's, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1961);
1 sugar syrup
2 lime juice
8 cuban white rum

But Embury also lists Ribalaigua's 5 numbered daiquiris:
#1: like our basic recipe
#2: adding orange juice and curacao
#3: basic recipe + 1 tsp grapefruit juice and 1 tsp maraschino liqueur
#4: gold rum + maraschino liqueur
#5: basic recipe + 1 tsp maraschino liqueur and 1 tsp grenadine

And just to muddle things (so to speak) Embury mentions a Daiquiri Grenadine which he says goes by the name Santiago, but which we would call a Bacardi Cocktail.

The Good Doctor lists a recipe like this in VSFC*:
2 oz light rum
juice from 1/2 lime
1 teaspoon simple syrup
1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur
serve blended with ice


And that is quite similar to what I'm making as my standard, except that I'm shaking it hard and serving it up in a cocktail glass.

The Daiquiri:
2 oz light rum
1 teaspoon simple syrup
1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur
3/4 oz fresh squeezed lime juice.
Shake hard over ice. No garnish. No grenadine.

I'd like to hear what other people are using as their "standard" Daiquiri.


*This book is so good and important, I think it deserves an acronym. Note it also can stand for Very Special Effing Cocktailbook.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Michael Dietsch said...

That's a great photo.

11:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bartenders Book, by Jack Townsend and Tom Moore McBride, 1951

"During the Prohibition debacle, grenadine wormed its insidious way into the
Bacardi, much to the disgust of astute practitioners of the compounding art.
It was another attempt to disguise bum liquor with a lot of sweet'nin' and
color. Unfortunately, the grenadine practice is still common, and the Bacardi
Company's efforts to educate the public away from it have fallen upon deadened
palates. According to the expert testimony of the late Eddie Woelke, when
grenadine is added, the Bacardi becomes a Santiago"


http://www.thinkingbartender.com/bartenderthinking/2007/02/the_bacardi_cocktail.html

6:42 AM  

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