Hemingway Daiquiri
Ernest Hemingway wandered into El Floridita in 1932, tried the house daiquiri and issued his amendment: no sugar, double the rum. The bar named the result the Papa Doble, and its most loyal customer reportedly worked through them in scarcely credible quantities, a drink for a man who distrusted sweetness and wrote like it. The honest truth is that the original Papa Doble is a punishing drink: 120ml of rum, no sugar, all austerity. The version the world now calls the Hemingway Daiquiri is the civilised descendant, with grapefruit joining the lime and maraschino carrying all the sweetness, and it is a better cocktail than its patron ever ordered. He would probably have objected, which is part of the charm. What survives from the great man’s spec is the drink’s character: bone-dry, citrus-forward and bracing, the daiquiri stripped of its plush. Alongside its sibling, the maraschino-kissed Floridita No. 3, it shows how far one bar in Havana stretched three ingredients and a lime press.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Lime Wheel
Ingredients
60ml
The foundation, poured at full daiquiri strength: Papa took his doubled, and the drink still leans dry and strong in his honour.
15ml
The sharp edge against the grapefruit's bitter one, and the smaller of the two by some distance. Grapefruit is the body of the drink and lime is the correction, which is the balance the official specification draws and the one that keeps it from reading as a plain daiquiri. Both have to be squeezed fresh or it loses its point.
40ml
The Hemingway’s signature: fresh white or pink grapefruit, adding bitterness the original daiquiri never had. Bottled juice flattens exactly what it brings.
15ml
The only sweetness in the glass, so its measure sets the drink’s whole register: fifteen millilitres reads dry and bright.
Instructions
Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino to a shaker with ice.
Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with the lime wheel and serve.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification, listed as Hemingway Special; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
The maraschino is the only sweetness in the glass, so measure it with intent. Fifteen millilitres reads dry and bright, ten is austere, and twenty starts tasting like dessert in disguise. Fix the citrus first and adjust the maraschino to whatever grapefruit you have, because white and pink bring quite different acid and bitterness. Double strain, always. Grapefruit throws fine pulp that clouds the drink and coarsens the texture, and this one's appeal is cut-glass clarity. A hard ten-second shake, then through both strainers into a coupe cold enough to fog. Squeeze the grapefruit fresh. Bottled juice loses exactly the bitter aromatic edge that separates this from an ordinary daiquiri, and there is no sugar here to cover the gap.
Behind the Hemingway Daiquiri
Flavour Profile
The Origin
El Floridita had been in Havana since 1817 and had been making daiquiris since Constantino Ribalaigua took over the bar in the 1910s. By the 1930s it was one of the best-regarded bars in the world and Ribalaigua one of the best-regarded bartenders in it.
Hemingway arrived in 1932, tried the house daiquiri and issued his amendment: no sugar, double the rum. He was diabetic, which is the usually-cited reason for the first half of that instruction; the second half needs no explanation. The bar named the result the Papa Doble, and its most loyal customer worked through them in quantities that strain belief even allowing for the legend.
The drink that travelled under his name afterwards is not quite the one he ordered, and it is considerably better for it.
Balancing Without Sugar
The maraschino carries the entire sweet register, so its measure sets the drink’s character: fifteen millilitres reads dry and bright, ten austere, twenty like dessert in disguise. Fix the citrus fresh and adjust the maraschino to the grapefruit in hand, because white and pink grapefruit bring different acid and bitterness to the table.
The Double Strain
Grapefruit throws fine pulp that clouds the drink and coarsens the texture, and the Hemingway’s appeal is cut-glass clarity: a hard ten-second shake, then through both strainers into a coupe cold enough to fog. The lime wheel is the only decoration the drink tolerates.
The Frozen Papa Doble
The blended reading is historically legitimate rather than a modern indulgence. The Floridita ran its blenders all day, and Ribalaigua's daiquiris were frequently flash-blended with crushed ice rather than shaken.
Flash-blending this spec produces something closer to what Hemingway actually drank: twice the size, cold enough to hurt, and considerably more forgiving of the austerity. It is also the version that makes 120ml of rum comprehensible, because the ice and the volume slow it right down.
Both are worth making. The shaken version is the better cocktail by a clear margin, sharper and more precise. The blended one is the better story, and on a hot afternoon the story wins more often than the argument does.
Grapefruit and Maraschino
The two additions that separate this from a plain daiquiri work as a pair, and neither makes much sense without the other.
Grapefruit brings bitterness, which a daiquiri does not otherwise have. Lime is sour and sharp but not bitter, and that bitter edge is what gives the drink its adult, bracing quality; it also lengthens the finish considerably, so the drink stays on the palate longer than its ingredients suggest.
Maraschino answers it. Its dry cherry-and-almond perfume sits against the grapefruit's bitterness rather than underneath it, and because it is the only sweetener it also has to do the balancing that sugar syrup would do in a standard daiquiri. That double duty is why the measure is so sensitive: it is the sweetness and the seasoning at the same time.
Make it at home
The Spirit
White RumWhite describes a filter rather than an age. A good deal of light rum spends time in oak and then has the colour taken back out with charcoal, which leaves the roundness that ageing gave it and none of the shade.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Hemingway Daiquiri?
How does it relate to the Papa Doble?
How dry should it be?
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