The Hemingway Daiquiri Cocktail Recipe
I have mixed feelings about Ernest Hemingway. I’m not a big fan of his economic and often repetitive writing style. I read what is probably his most famous book ‘A Farewell to Arms’ around 18-months ago and found it a sometimes beautiful but often tedious book. It took me just over a month to read a 300-page novel if that’s any indication. Far be it from me to criticise a literary giant but his writing just doesn’t resonate with me.
The man himself, however, is a very different story. Hemingway was a fascinating character, a man of action and one of the 20th-century's most enduring figures. He participated in World War 1 driving an ambulance on the Italian front until he was injured. He was part of the famous expatriate artist scene in Jazz-Age Paris during the “Roaring Twenties”. He covered the Spanish Civil War as a journalist.
Quick to anger, he was an inveterate drinker and brawler, spending his time in pre-revolutionary Havana leaning against El Floridita’s bar at which there now stands a statue of the author in his honour. He even has his own version of my favourite drink, the Daiquiri, named after him: The Hemingway Special Daiquiri.
The legendary Ernest Hemingway
The story goes that Hemingway had a condition that pre-disposed him to Diabetes, so he preferred his Daiquiri’s with double the rum and no sugar and the ‘Papa Doble’ was born. At four shots of rum and some lime juice, this is an unbalanced drink and mouth-puckeringly dry, only suitable for the very driest of palates.
He claims a record of drinking 16 in one-sitting, which aside from giving me a hangover just thinking about it, may be a slight exaggeration. Classic cocktail recipes and anecdotes tend to suffer from historical distortion, so the full truth is rarely known but it’s an interesting tale none-the-less.
The Hemingway Special Daiquiri, more often just simply the Hemingway Daiquiri, has undergone several transformations over the years with grapefruit juice and Maraschino liqueur added to make the version that is nowadays pretty much the standard. There are however several different variants of this drink though. Some are heavier on the Maraschino, some have equal parts lime and grapefruit juice, and some have no sugar.
The recipe below is my favourite version. It is lighter on the Maraschino than some other versions, I often find Luxardo’s Maraschino liqueur to be a bit of a flavour bully in delicate cocktails. There’s a decent amount of sugar syrup to keep everything rounded and balanced too.
Prep time: 4 minutes
Tools: Boston glass, shaker tin, jigger, citrus juicer, Hawthorne strainer and a coupe glass
Ingredients:
60ml/2oz Havana Club Añejo 3 Años Rum*- As always, Cuban rum for a Cuban drink
22.5ml/0.75oz freshly squeezed lime juice
15ml/0.5oz freshly squeezed red or pink grapefruit juice (White grapefruit is too bitter for this drink)
7.5ml/0.25oz Maraschino liqueur- Preferably Luxardo
10ml/0.33oz 2:1 rich sugar syrup- Recipe can be found here
Ice
*For my American based readers- Due to the trade embargo placed upon Cuba by the U.S Government, Cuban rum isn’t legally available in America. Substitute in your preferred white rum.
Steps:
Carefully cut a peel from the grapefruit to express over the finished drink. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice, rich simple syrup and the Maraschino into the Boston glass, fill with ice and shake for around 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe glass and express (squeeze) the grapefruit oils over the drink and garnish with the grapefruit peel- simply twist and drop the into the drink. Enjoy
Let me know what you thought of the drink below.
Cheers,
Terry
