'The Holy' Spirits, Cocktails en Workshops -

18 May 2021

THE ORIGIN OF THE DAIQUIRI

Santiago de Cuba is a relatively little know city on Cuba. While everyone knows Havana as the capital and tourist hotspot, this is where the ‘pure’ Cuba can still be found.

Thanks to the wonderful tropical climate and the warm wind from the sea across the sugarcane fields, it is a great place to be. With amazing women and men, the city swings in every wat. Due to the many street orchestras and terraces, it is hard to image being in a communist country.

After sitting down at the bar with a view of the street, a waitress came our way. We knew so little Spanish that a long conversation was impossible. But everything about this young lady exuded eroticism. Her sensual presence and voice kept us from checking our the drinks menu. “Bring us any drink to ease our mind”.

Next thing, two Daiquiris were put in front of us. The waitress’s wink made us stay through the night.

Origin Daiquiri

The story goes that this cocktail was invented around 1900 in a bar called Venus in Santiago by a group of American mining engineers, including Jennings Cox, general director of the Spanish American Iron Co., and J. Francis Linthicum. Although rumor has it that Cox invented the cocktail when he ran out of gin while receiving American guests, it was created over time because of the abundance of limes and sugar in the area. The name Daiquiri is the same as that of a beach near Santiago de Cuba and of an iron mine in that area.

The drink was originally served in a tall glass filled with crushed ice. A teaspoon of sugar was sprinkled over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed across the sugar. The mix was completed by added 30 to 90 ml rum. The glass condensed by stirring with a long-stemmed spoon. Later, the Daiquiri evolved into a mix in a shaker with the same ingredients, but with shave ice. After a good shake, it was poured into a chilled flute glass. An article in the Miami Herald of March 14, 1937 contained the recipe and the history of the Daiquiri. The cocktail was only consumed locally, until, in 1909, Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a American naval doctor, tried Cox’s drink, after which he introduced it at the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC and over the span of two decades, the number of people drinking Daiquiris increased considerably.

However, it became really popular in the 1940’s. Rationing made whisky, vodka, etc. hard to get, but thanks to Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy (which made trade with and travelling to Latin-America and the Caribbean easier), rum was plentiful. This policy (also known as the Pan-American Program) also helped make Latin-America fashionable. In part thanks to this, rum-based drinks, long considered to be the stuff only sailors and other riffraff drank, also became acceptable and the Daiquiri became immensely popular in the US.

The basic recipe of the Daiquiri resembles the grog that Dutch sailors drank on board since the 1740’s. Around 1795, the daily ration contained rum, water, lemon or lime juice and sugar. This was a common drink in the Caribbean and when ice became available, it quickly replaced the water in the grog. Jennings Cox’s story is certainly popular and he may have give it its name, but as its inventor, he was about 150 years late.