Daiquiri
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This article is about the mixed drink. For the Cuban village, see Daiquirí.
Daiquiri, or Daiquirí (which is the Cuban spelling of the word), is a family of cocktails whose main ingredients are rum and lime juice. There are several versions, but those that gained international fame are the ones made in one of the most famous bars in the world: the Floridita, in Havana.
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[edit] Origins
The name Daiquirí is also the name of a beach near Santiago, Cuba, and an iron mine in that area. The cocktail was invented about 1905 in a bar named Venus in Santiago, about 23 miles east of the mine, by a group of American mining engineers. Among the engineers present were Jennings Cox, General Manager of the Spanish American Iron Co., J. Francis Linthicum, C. Manning Combs, George W. Pfeiffer, De Berneire Whitaker, C. Merritt Holmes and Proctor O. Persing.
Although stories persist that that Cox invented the drink when he ran out of gin while entertaining American guests, the drink evolved naturally due to the prevalence of lime and sugar.
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 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 flute glass. An article in the March 14, 1937 edition of the Miami Herald as well as private correspondence of J.F. Linthicum confirm the recipe and early history.
Consumption of the drink remained localized until 1909, when Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a US Navy medical officer, tried Cox's drink. Johnson subsequently introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC, and drinkers of the daiquiri increased over the space of a few decades.[1]
The daiquiri was one of the favorite drinks of the writer Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway however was a renowned diabetic, this led to the invention of the hemingway daiquiri, which substitutes grapefruit juice for the sugar, and adds a dash of maraschino liqueur.
[edit] Frozen daiquiris
A wide variety of alcoholic drinks made with finely pulverized ice are often called "frozen daiquiris". Although to purists most of these are not true daiquiris at all, use of this term to describe these drinks is common, especially around the U.S. Gulf Coast. Such drinks are often commercially made in machines which produce a texture similar to a smoothie, and come in a wide variety of flavors made with various alcohol or liquors.
[edit] References in popular culture
- In The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield says daiquiri is his favourite drink. Despite this, though, all he orders during the story is scotch and soda.
- In 1989 comedy cult film UHF, George Newman (played by "Weird Al" Yankovic) orders a blueberry daiquiri.
- In the Panic! At the Disco song "But It's Better If You Do", a patron at a lapdance club is mentioned as drinking a peach and lime daiquiri.
- In the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace the Tenth Doctor claims to have invented the banana daiquiri "two centuries early" during a party in 17th century France.
- Banana daiquiri (or "banananananana dakry") features in the Discworld novel Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. In the author's biography for Good Omens, Pratchett says he is always grateful when fans buy him one.
- There is also a Canadian electro punk rock metal band called Daiquiri.
- In The Godfather Part II, Fredo Corleone orders a banana daiquiri .
- In "Another Lonely Christmas" by Prince "I drink banana daiquris til I'm blind"
- In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood drinks several daiquiris in a night out with her friend Doreen.
- In John Updike's Rabbit, Run, Ruth, Margaret and Rabbit drink daiquiris (for Rabbit, "thinking a daiquiri will be like a limeade")
- In an episode of Futurama ('Crimes of the Hot') on finding out that Halleys comet is out of ice (which is needed to counter the effects of global warming) Bender remarks "This could mean the end of the banana daiquiri as we know it ... also life."
- In th movie "Wedding Crashers", at the end of the football game, Christopher Walken's character initiates a "Daiquiri brake."
[edit] See also
