The original daiquiri was a mixture of rum, lime, and sugar, served over ice. Yet another product of late-nineteenthth-century imperialism, the Daiquiri was first recorded in a Cuban mining town of the same name. Although the locals had probably been knocking back rum and lime for years, in 1886 an American engineer, James Cox, and a Cuban engineer named Pagliuchi refined the rum and lime drink by adding cane sugar. When Admiral Lucius Johnson introduced the recipe to the Army Navy Club in D.C., in 1909, the Daiquiri was becoming one of the world’s most popular drinks. Many years later, John F. Kennedy may have tried his first Daiquiri there. We will never know, but quite ironically, JFK, who also had a penchant for Cuban cigars, designated the Daiquiri as his drink of choice.
Constantino Ribalagua, the famed bartender at Havana’s La Floridita—nicknamed La Catedral del Daiquiri—blended the drink with shaved ice, thereby creating the frozen Daiquiri. Chief among the frozen Daiquiri’s adherents was Ernest Hemingway. Ribalagua specifically created a sugarless Papa Dobles for Papa Hemingway, who apparently could wade through a dozen of these at one sitting. Standing is not an option after a dozen frozen Daiquiris.
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