DAIQUIRI - Recipe

DAIQUIRI

Daiquirí is also the name of a beach and an iron mine near Santiago de Cuba, and is a word of Taíno origin. The drink was supposedly invented by an American mining engineer, named Jennings Cox, who was in Cuba at the time of the Spanish–American War. It is also possible that William A. Chanler, a US congressman who purchased the Santiago iron mines in 1902, introduced the daiquiri to clubs in New York in that year.

Originally the drink was served in a tall glass packed with cracked ice. A teaspoon of sugar was poured over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of white rum completed the mixture. The glass was then frosted by stirring with a long-handled spoon. Later the daiquiri evolved to be mixed in a shaker with the same ingredients but with shaved ice. After a thorough shaking, it was poured into a chilled coupe glass.

The drink became popular in the 1940s.[citation needed] World War II rationing made whiskey and vodka hard to come by, yet because of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy rum was easily obtainable because the policy opened up trade and travel relations with Latin America, Cuba and the Caribbean. The Good Neighbor policy, also known as the Pan-American program, helped make Latin America fashionable. Consequently, rum-based drinks (once frowned upon as being the choice of sailors and down-and-outs), also became fashionable, and the daiquiri saw a tremendous rise in popularity in the US.

Speaking of summertime cocktails, the Daiquiri is a citrusy sweet marriage of rum and lime.

Ingredients

2 oz. white rum

1/2 tsp. superfine sugar

1/2 oz. lime juice


Directions

Squeeze lime into a shaker, stir in sugar, then add rum. Shake well with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.