Royal Bermuda Yacht Club

Daiquiri

A Daiquiri is 60ml white rum, 20ml fresh lime juice and two bar spoons of caster sugar. Stir the sugar into the rum and lime in the shaker until it dissolves, then add ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strain into a chilled coupe. About 2.4 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures, and its method dissolves the sugar first too. The name belongs to Daiquirí, an iron-mining district and beach near Santiago de Cuba. Difford’s Guide credits Jennings Stockton Cox, an American engineer who led one of the first mining parties into Cuba’s iron-ore country after the Spanish-American War of 1898; the Oxford Companion has him making or supervising the first Daiquiri in 1896, and a Santiago bartender naming it in 1908. Difford’s says Constantino Ribalaigua Vert of Havana’s El Floridita made the frozen version famous. With three ingredients and no liqueur or bitters, the Daiquiri hides nothing. A flat rum, tired lime or undissolved sugar shows in the first sip.

Hemingway Daiquiri

A Hemingway Daiquiri is 60ml white rum, 40ml fresh grapefruit juice, 15ml fresh lime juice and 15ml maraschino liqueur, shaken hard and double strained into a chilled coupe, with a lime wheel. The measures follow the IBA, which lists it as the Hemingway Special. There is no sugar syrup: the maraschino is the only sweetness. About 2.9 UK units. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails says it is a version of the Daiquiri No. 3 from Havana’s Floridita bar, named for the writer who downed them there in volume. Difford’s Guide has Hemingway trying the Floridita’s standard frozen Daiquiri and saying he preferred it without sugar and with double rum, which became the Papa Doble, and says the head bartender Antonio Meilan later added maraschino and grapefruit juice to make the Hemingway Special. It is drier and more bitter than a classic Daiquiri, and the grapefruit decides how it tastes.

Corn n’ Oil

A Corn n’ Oil is 15ml of falernum over crushed ice in a rocks glass, with 60ml of blackstrap rum floated on top, two dashes of Angostura and a squeeze of lime, served unstirred. About 2.6 UK units. The Oxford Companion says almonds are sometimes added to falernum, so treat the drink as containing nuts. Difford’s Guide calls the Corn ’n’ Oil a traditional Barbadian planters’ drink, authentic with a Bajan rum and no oil-slick float. The blackstrap version, with near-black rum sitting on top of the falernum, is a later bar reading: bar-vademecum credits Murray Stenson of the Zig Zag Café in Seattle with the version made with Cruzan Black Strap. Ours is that blackstrap version. The rum is dark, heavy and slightly bitter; the falernum brings lime, clove and sugar; and the lime and bitters keep the two from turning sweet.

Hotel Nacional

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.