The Hemmingway daiquiri
"This frozen daiquiri, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots" - Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream.
Ernest Hemingway lived in Havana on and off for 30 years before, during and after the Cuban revolution. He was said to have been friends (as well as enemies) with Fidel Castro, and under observation by the FBI. What is definitely known is that he was a heavy drinker (he loved rum), though he never smoked (he claimed it messed with his sense of smell), and he was an incurable pants man (three wives, countless affairs).
He also hated sugary drinks and his three requirements for the perfect Hemingway are that it must be strong, cold and tart. So on drinking at El Floradita in the 1950s, where he was often spotted with the likes of Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn, he had head bartender Constantino Ribalaigua make a unsweetened version of a daiquiri with white grapefruit juice to balance out the super tartness of the limes, maraschino liqueur (he hated sugars and syrups of any description but this liqueur is sweet enough to do the trick) and double the rum. You'll also occasionally see the drink called the Papa Doble, after his nickname for his penchant for ordering doubles.
The interesting thing about this particular drink is its execution. Frozen daiquiris (that is, everything piled into a blender, blitzed then served) are considered the cheat's version - the sort of thing likely to come out of one of those slushy machines you see at music festivals or uni bars. If you order a Hemingway in a Sydney bar you'll be more than likely to have a shaken drink put in front of you. Partly because they're considered to be the kind of drink you order when you're an experienced cocktail drinker and partly because a lot of people don't know that the original version was a frozen drink where all the ingredients were bunged in together.
The original daiquiri first spotted in the early 1900s is a mix of rum, lime juice and sugar syrup poured over shaved ice. Later realisations find it served frozen but the purist version is mixed manually. Purists would also say that blended daiquiris are not real daiquiris at all. Suffice to say Hemingway was not a fan.
Because he was such a consummate drinker and cocktail aficionado, he'd sit up at the bar instead of at one of the tables thus being able to dictate every shake, squeeze and pour that happened on the pass. The stool where he whiled away hours, days, weeks and years is still reserved for Hemingway and verboten to the regular punters, though a visit to the bar is also on the Hemingway tour so you could at least get a happy snap near it, then buy the t-shirt.
Make a cracker Hemingway!
- 2 1/1 jiggers Bacardi or Havana Club rum (1 jigger = 1 1/2 ounces)
- Juice of 2 limes
- Juice of 1/2 grapefruit
- 6 drops of maraschino (cherry brandy)
Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino.
Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored.
Serve in a martini glass.