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*Difficulty Rating is based on the techniques used as well as the number, uniqueness, and the cost of ingredients
The Daiquiri might be the best cocktail on Earth. Refreshing and brisk, clean and easy, tart yet quenching. On a summer’s day you can drink one after another and be content with either its complexity or simplicity, often both of these at once.
A classic Daiquiri is straightforward in it’s design with only three ingredients–lime, sugar, and rum. This minimal build was born of necessity but belies the genius it contains.
Rum (or Rhum) is perhaps the most varied spirit in terms of taste profile. This is dependent upon where and how it is made. From island to island, mountainside or coastal, every rum brings a unique flavor to the delicious taste of a Daiquiri.
1 oz
1 oz
2 oz
Lime Juice
Simple Syrup
Rum
Less mystery surrounds the origin of the Daiquiri than most cocktails, though there are competing accounts of who popularized it.
The word Daiquiri is originally the name of a small village, beach and nearby iron mine on Cuba’s southern coast, a little east of Santiago. Dayquiri itself is of Taíno origin (the Taíno are the indegineous people of the Caribbean), and was altered slightly by the Spanish into its current form, Daiquiri.
The eponymous iron mine employed an American ex-pat as a mining engineer, named Jennings Cox. Legend is, in 1902, as guests were arriving Cox found he had run out of gin for a reception gimlet. Not wanting to serve rum straight, he substituted the local spirit in place of gin in the gimlet. He and the guests were delighted by the taste and thus the Daiquiri was born.
One story of its popularization and spread is by Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson. Johnson visited Cox, tried his concoction, and was so impressed he introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington D.C. The Club has forever memorialized him, with a small brass plaque that hangs on the second floor entrance to the “Daiquiri Lounge”, honoring his contribution to the Daiquiri.
Another less vaunted origin story is of a U.S. Congressman who bought the iron mines in 1902. William A. Chanler tried Cox’s Daiquiri and was so impressed he took the recipe back to New York and disseminated it to many of the clubs of which he was a member.
The evolution of the daiquiri out of the grog that British sailors were rationed since the mid 18th century seems a more likely path to this modern cocktail. Drinking water was fortified with a spirit (in this case rum) to prevent the growth of algae during long passages. Lime was included to prevent scurvy, and sugar was introduced to make the whole mix more palatable.
Chances are that several Caribbean islands had some form of this libation long before Cox had stepped foot on Cuba. Three simple ingredients that almost every island has in abundance; Sugar, Limes, and Rum. The idea that it took an American engineer to swap out one of the ingredients for something literally all around him seems pretty far-fetched.
The real boom of the Daiquiri came in the 1940’s, after the Good Neighbor policy opened up U.S. trade with and travel with Latin America. This policy allowed rum to be easily acquired in the states and lessened the stigma of rum as a drink only for sailors. Combined with war-time rationing of vodka and whiskey, rum popularity soared, and the king of the curve was the Mighty Daiquiri