Hotel Nacional

Name: Hotel Nacional
Prep time: 3 min
Total time: 3 min
Yield: 1 cocktail
Cuisine: Cuban
Ingredients: 45ml Gold Rum; 45ml Fresh Pineapple Juice; 15ml Fresh Lime Juice; 5ml Dry Apricot Brandy

Wayfinder

A Hotel Nacional is 45ml of gold rum, 45ml of fresh pineapple juice, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 5ml of dry apricot brandy, shaken hard with cracked ice for 10 to 12 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe. It is Charles H. Baker’s 1939 recipe, with his jigger taken as 45ml, his teaspoon as 5ml and the juice of half a lime as 15ml. About 2.0 UK units. It is a pineapple daiquiri with a trace of stone fruit underneath, and no sugar but the pineapple’s own. The dry apricot brandy is a teaspoon, a kernel note under the fruit rather than a flavour in front of it. The lime keeps it a sour rather than a fruit cup. The name is the Hotel Nacional de Cuba’s, which the Oxford Companion calls Havana’s grandest luxury resort when it opened in 1930, and Difford’s Guide lists the drink as the Hotel Nacional Special. Baker credits Wil P. Taylor, the hotel’s manager from 1931 to 1933; Difford’s adds that Eddie Woelke and Fred Kaufman have been credited too.

ShakenClassic

Glassware: Coupe Glass

Garnish: Pineapple wedge optional; Baker names no garnish

Ingredients

Serves

Gold Rum

45ml

Baker’s Carta de Oro Bacardi, one jigger, which his book defines as 1½ oz level full and we take as 45ml. He chose the gold label because Carta Blanca “is so delicate in flavour it barely comes through any rich drink”. Any lightly aged gold rum at 40% ABV does the same job.

Fresh Pineapple Juice

45ml

One jigger in Baker’s recipe, taken as 45ml. Pressed or blended from a ripe pineapple and strained the same day. Its proteins make the foam under a hard shake; carton juice is heat-treated and does not.

Fresh Lime Juice

15ml

Half a lime in Baker’s recipe, taken as 15ml of juice. Squeezed the same day. With no sugar in the glass, the lime is the only thing holding the pineapple’s sweetness back.

Dry Apricot Brandy

5ml

One teaspoon in Baker’s recipe, taken as 5ml. His word is dry, which we read as an unsweetened apricot spirit, so a dry apricot eau de vie at about 40% ABV is the nearest bottle. The sweet apricot liqueur most recipes mean is a different product, covered on the apricot brandy page.

Instructions

Squeeze the lime, and press or blend and strain the pineapple, the same day.

Add the gold rum, pineapple juice, lime juice and dry apricot brandy to a shaker.

Fill with cracked ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.

Strain into a chilled coupe.

Garnish with a pineapple wedge on the rim, if you like.

Source: Difford's Guide (Charles H. Baker Jr., The Gentleman’s Companion, Volume II (1939), p. 78, which Difford’s Guide also prints: his jigger (1½ oz) taken as 45ml, a teaspoon as 5ml and the juice of half a lime as 15ml; shake time, strain and garnish ours). Last checked 19 October 2026.

Expert Tip

Use fresh pineapple juice and shake it hard. Fresh juice foams, and the foam is a large part of the drink’s texture; carton juice has been heat-treated, barely foams and tastes cooked beside it. Taste the pineapple before you build. Baker’s recipe has no syrup, so the fruit is the only sweetness, and an underripe pineapple makes a sharp glass. A ripe one needs nothing; an underripe one may want 5ml of simple syrup. Keep the apricot to the teaspoon. At 5ml the dry spirit is a note under the fruit. In our experience a sweet apricot liqueur at 15ml, as in Difford’s Guide’s current version, makes a rounder, sweeter drink.

The story

Behind the Hotel Nacional

Flavour Profile

PineappleApricotLimeGoldenRounded

A Havana Hotel and Its Special

The Oxford Companion, in an entry by Jeff Berry, calls the Hotel Nacional de Cuba Havana’s grandest luxury resort when it opened in 1930, and the Hotel Nacional the house drink there. Difford’s Guide says a hotel opening off the US coast at the height of Prohibition attracted some of America’s greatest bartenders. The drink that carries its name is often called the Hotel Nacional Special.

Baker’s Gentleman’s Companion of 1939 credits the drink to Wil P. Taylor, the hotel’s manager from 1931 to 1933, and calls it one of the three finest Bacardi drinks known to science. Difford’s Guide says Eddie Woelke and Fred Kaufman have also been credited with it, and prints the “National” from Albert Stevens Crockett’s Old Waldorf Astoria Book of 1935, the first entry in its Cuban concoctions, contributed by Taylor: equal parts Bacardi and pineapple juice, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of apricot brandy.

Baker’s Measures

Baker’s recipe is one jigger of Carta de Oro Bacardi, the juice of half a lime, one jigger of fresh pineapple juice and one teaspoon of dry apricot brandy, shaken with cracked ice, strained and served in a tall cocktail glass with a stem. His book defines a jigger as one and a half ounces, level full. It gives no millilitres: we take a jigger as 45ml, a teaspoon as 5ml and half a lime as 15ml of juice, and those conversions are ours.

The apricot is the small measure doing a great deal. Pineapple is loud and sweet and sits at the front of the palate. Apricot is stone fruit with a bitter-almond kernel note, a different register, and it sits underneath. The pineapple arrives as it always does and then, instead of stopping, hands over to something rounder and slightly bitter.

Why It Keeps a Sour Structure

Many tropical rum drinks let the fruit juice do the sweetening and leave the citrus as decoration. This one keeps the daiquiri’s frame: 15ml of lime against 45ml of rum is a real sour measure, and there is no syrup to trim it, so the pineapple’s own sugar is all the sweetening the glass gets. That is why the fruit should be ripe.

Crockett’s 1935 recipe, as Difford’s Guide prints it, is also equal parts rum and pineapple juice, with a squeeze of lemon and a dash of apricot brandy where Baker has half a lime and a teaspoon.

Beside the Daiquiri and the Mary Pickford

Three Havana rum drinks: the Hotel Nacional is Baker’s recipe in millilitres, the Daiquiri and Mary Pickford as on their own pages

Rum

Hotel Nacional: 45ml gold
Daiquiri: 60ml white
Mary Pickford: 45ml white

Pineapple juice

Hotel Nacional: 45ml, fresh
Daiquiri: None
Mary Pickford: 45ml, fresh

Citrus

Hotel Nacional: 15ml fresh lime
Daiquiri: 20ml fresh lime
Mary Pickford: None

Liqueur

Hotel Nacional: 5ml dry apricot brandy
Daiquiri: None
Mary Pickford: 7.5ml maraschino

Sweetener

Hotel Nacional: None
Daiquiri: Two bar spoons caster sugar
Mary Pickford: 5ml grenadine

Method

Hotel Nacional: Shaken 10 to 12 seconds
Daiquiri: Shaken 10 to 12 seconds
Mary Pickford: Shaken 10 to 12 seconds

UK units

Hotel Nacional: About 2.0
Daiquiri: About 2.4
Mary Pickford: About 2.0

Element	Hotel Nacional	Daiquiri	Mary Pickford
Rum	45ml gold	60ml white	45ml white
Pineapple juice	45ml, fresh	None	45ml, fresh
Citrus	15ml fresh lime	20ml fresh lime	None
Liqueur	5ml dry apricot brandy	None	7.5ml maraschino
Sweetener	None	Two bar spoons caster sugar	5ml grenadine
Method	Shaken 10 to 12 seconds	Shaken 10 to 12 seconds	Shaken 10 to 12 seconds
UK units	About 2.0	About 2.4	About 2.0

All three are Havana rum drinks shaken and served up. The Daiquiri is the frame. The Mary Pickford drops the lime and leans on pineapple and maraschino, so it comes out rounder. The Hotel Nacional keeps the lime and adds the apricot, which makes it the sharper of the two fruit drinks.

How to Serve It

Strained into a coupe from the freezer, with a pineapple wedge on the rim if you want one. Baker asks for a tall cocktail glass with a stem; a chilled coupe is the stemmed glass we use. Drink it soon after making it, while the foam still stands; it settles within a few minutes.

For pineapple with maraschino and grenadine, make a Mary Pickford; for rum, lime and sugar alone, a Daiquiri.

Make it

Make it at home

The Spirit

White Rum

White rum is clear rum, usually bottled at 40% ABV, either unaged or rested in oak and then charcoal-filtered back to clear. It is the light, dry rum of the Daiquiri, the Mojito and the Cuba Libre, and the rum most of our recipes mean when they want rum that sits under lime rather than over it.

Learn more

Master the Techniques

How to shake a cocktailin Shaken or stirred? When to shake or stir a cocktail

Go further

More to explore

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Hotel Nacional cocktail?

Gold rum, fresh pineapple, fresh lime and a teaspoon of dry apricot brandy: 45ml, 45ml, 15ml and 5ml, shaken with cracked ice and strained into a chilled coupe. It follows Charles H. Baker’s 1939 recipe. Difford’s Guide says the drink was created around the opening of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, in Havana, in 1930.

Who created the Hotel Nacional?

Nobody can say for certain. Difford’s Guide reports that Charles H. Baker’s Gentleman’s Companion of 1939 credits Wil P. Taylor, the hotel’s manager from 1931 to 1933. It says Eddie Woelke and Fred Kaufman have also been credited, and perhaps all three contributed; Woelke claimed a “Nacional” as his own in his 1936 The Barman’s Mentor.

What does the apricot brandy do?

It gives the finish. At 5ml it sweetens nothing; the apricot’s kernel note sits under the pineapple and carries on after the fruit has gone. Leave it out and the glass is a pineapple daiquiri with no stone fruit at all.

Is apricot brandy actually brandy?

Usually not. Most recipes that say apricot brandy mean a sweet liqueur of apricots steeped in spirit, usually 20 to 30% ABV, and a dry apricot eau de vie is a different bottle. Baker’s 1939 recipe calls for “dry apricot brandy”, so the recipe uses the dry spirit.

Can I use carton pineapple juice?

You can, and the drink will be thinner. Carton juice has been pasteurised, which flattens its aroma and stops it foaming under the shake. Fresh juice gives the Hotel Nacional its pale head and a brighter acidity.

Does a Hotel Nacional need sugar?

Not in Baker’s recipe, which has none: the pineapple sweetens and the lime sours. With an underripe pineapple, add 5ml of simple syrup and taste. Difford’s Guide’s current version uses 15ml of apricot liqueur and adds 7.5ml of cane syrup.

How strong is a Hotel Nacional?

About 2.0 UK units: 1.8 from 45ml of gold rum at 40% ABV and about 0.2 from 5ml of dry apricot brandy, taken at 40% as our working figure. The juices add none. UK units are ABV times millilitres divided by 1,000; the Chief Medical Officers’ guideline is no more than 14 units a week, spread over three or more days.

Sources.

Correct as of 19 October 2026.

Difford’s Guide, “Hotel Nacional Special” (secondary source: created around the hotel’s 1930 opening; Taylor, Woelke and Kaufman all credited; Baker (Gentleman’s Companion, 1939) credits Wil P. Taylor, manager 1931 to 1933 (1 jigger Carta de Oro Bacardi, ½ lime, 1 jigger fresh pineapple juice, 1 tsp dry apricot brandy; Gold Label indicated); Crockett, Old Waldorf Astoria Book (1935), “National”: equal parts Bacardi and pineapple juice, squeeze of lemon, dash of apricot brandy; Woelke, The Barman’s Mentor (1936), “Nacional”; Difford’s current version: 50ml Havana Club 3, 15ml Luxardo apricot liqueur, 22.5ml pineapple juice, 15ml lime juice, 7.5ml cane syrup, optional 5ml agricole blanc).
The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Jeff Berry), “Hotel Nacional” (secondary source: the house drink at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana’s grandest luxury resort when it opened in 1930; Woelke claimed it as the “Nacional” in The Barman’s Mentor (1936); Baker referred to the same drink in 1939).
Charles H. Baker Jr. (1939), Internet Archive, “The Gentleman’s Companion, Volume II: An Exotic Drinking Book” (primary source, read 19 Oct in the Vintage Cocktail Books collection; the contents list gives Wil P. Taylor’s Nacional Hotel Special at p. 78: Carta de Oro Bacardi 1 jigger, fresh pineapple juice 1 jigger, lime juice ½, dry apricot brandy 1 tsp; shake with cracked ice, strain, serve in a tall cocktail glass with a stem; Gold Label indicated because Carta Blanca “is so delicate in flavour it barely comes through any rich drink”; “one of the three finest Bacardi drinks known to science”; the book defines a jigger as 1½ oz level full and a pony as 1 oz).