The Daiquirí has very close associations with Cuba’s fight for independence, from its birth through its evolution into the world’s most beloved Cuban cocktail. The first cry for freedom, in 1868, was sounded at Yara,  near Santiago de Cuba and echoed through the nearby mining village of Daiquirí.

In their bid for autonomy, the Mambises fortified themselves with the Daiquirí’s parent, Canchánchara. It was simple blend of rum, lime juice, and “honey” (a term frequently used in Cuba to describe molasses). The drink was made in batches and poured into bottles. Strapped to their saddles, the bottled Canchánchara was not only a welcomed thirst-quencher for the freedom fighters during the long, arduous campaigns against the Spanish colonial army. It was also an effective painkiller for the wounded.

But even this was not the original. A 1754 French-Spanish dictionary defines "Ponche" or "Ponche a Bebida Inglesa" as the combination of aguardiente de caña (rum), lime, sugar, and water.  Introduced to western Europe by English sailors who encountered it in India with the addition of tea, Punch was esteemed ancestor that first arrived, in the 1660s, when the British fleet captured Santiago de Cuba.

Canchánchara was certainly present during 1898 Spanish-American War when the town of Daiquirí was the focal point of an offensive that saw Spanish troops attacked from the land by General Calixto García’s Cuban Liberation Army and from the sea by Admiral William T Sampson’s American naval forces led by General William Shafter, who landed 17,000 troops on the shipping docks owned by the Spanish-American Iron Company on Daiquirí Bay.

Some legends say that when the 300-pound, 63-year-old Shafter first tasted the Canchánchara, he declared that, “the only missing ingredient is ice.”

It is just prior to this epic moment, in 1896, that many authorities believe that the Daiquirí was "born". New York mining engineer Jennings S. Cox, Jr. was the general manager of the Spanish-American Iron Company and a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. So was colleague F.D. Pagliuchi, who besides being a war correspondent for Harper's Monthly was actively involved in the Cuban liberation movement.

At the end of one day, Pagliuchi suggested it was cocktail time. Cox was out of gin and vermouth, the ingredients for a Martini. So Cox shook up rum, lime and sugar, possibly inspired by the locals’ consumption of Canchánchara.

Upon tasting it, Pagliuchi inquired, “What is this cocktail called?”

“It doesn’t have a name, so it must be a Rum Sour,” Cox replied.

“That’s no name for such a fine, exquisite cocktail! We’ll call it a Daiquirí!” Pagliuchi exclaimed.

There is also a story that a few nights later, Pagliuchi and Cox visited the American Club in Santiago de Cuba and ordered a Daiquirí, knowing the bartender would not know the drink by that name. Thus, when they explained it to him, the barman became the first to make the drink called by that name in a bar. Unfortunately, the bartender’s name was not recorded. (In The Gentleman’s Companion, Charles H. Baker added a friend of his to this cast of characters: Harry E. Stout, whom he said was another mining engineer based with Cox and present for the drink's creation.)

After independence was won, the Daiquirí became a fashionable drink for the engineers who frequented the Venus Hotel in Santiago de Cuba just to partake in this refreshment. It then made an appearance in Havana at the Plaza Hotel, introduced by its famed bartender Emilio González, who was more familiarly known as Maragato.

But it was in the hands of Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, who took over La Florida in 1918, that the Daiquirí’s more familiar children were born and thrived. Enthused by this simple sour concoction, Constante tested six versions.

That's right. Six versions.

To 60 ml of Cuban rum, the Daiquirí No. 1 used one teaspoon of sugar to 12.5 ml of fresh lime juice. Daiquirí No. 2 (Version A) added 10 ml of fresh orange juice and 5 ml of curaçao to the base recipe. Daiquirí No. 2 (Version B for B Obon) mixed 20 ml of fresh Seville orange juice and 10 ml of curaçao with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Daiquirí No. 3 combined 10 ml of lime juice, 5 ml of grapefruit juice,  and 5 ml of marashcino with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Daiquirí No. 5 was a rosy version of No. 4 thanks to the addition of 5 ml of grenadine.

But it was Constante' s frappéed Daiquirí No. 4 that became best known as the Floridita Daiquirí. Before the late 1930s, United Press journalist Jack Cuddy noted in the 1937 book Cocktails: Bar la Florida that Constante blended his concoction with ice in an electric mixer ("one of those malted milk stirrers in American Drug stores"). That was before he ordered a Flak Mak ice-crushing machine from the United States. And when the Waring blender was launched, in 1938, El Floridita was one of the first establishments to adopt its use.

It was around this time that the Daiquirí's famed offspring, the Hemingway Special was also born.

Returning from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in 1938, Ernest Hemingway settled into the Hotel Ambos Mundos and began to write his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story goes that Hemingway took a break one day and stopped into El Floridita at the other end of the street near Parque Central, where he ordered a Daiquirí from Constante.

In spite of the opinions of his doctor friends, Hemingway was convinced that he had diabetes. Consequently, he excluded all sugar from his diet, though he was never concerned about his alcohol consumption. Constante offered him a sugar-free Daiquirí with a double dose of Cuban rum. This Daiquirí Del Salvaje, soon became the Daiquirí a la Papa, then Daiquirí Como Papa.

Enamored with his new discovery, Hemingway returned every day at 11 am. He always sat on the same bar stool and downed a couple of his special Daiquirís. Sometimes he would return at 5 pm to consume a dozen more.

A few years later,  Floridita cantinero Antonio Meilan modified the recipe using 15 ml of grapefruit juice, 5 ml of lime juice, 10 ml of maraschino, and no sugar with 120 ml of Cuban rum, immortalizing it under the appellation “Hemingway Special” or “Papa Doble”.

After Hemingway moved out of the hotel and into his home La Finca Vigía, he continued his frequent visits. Floridita’s Daiquirís became such a source of inspiration for him that sometimes he brought in a thermos bottle to have it carefully filled with his favorite refreshment. Hemingway called this his viaticum [Latin for “provisions for a journey”], his trago del camino [gulp for the road], which helped him prolong the happy reverie begun in the Floridita during the ride back to home.

As tasting-tempting as the potent Hemingway Special is, the classic Flordita Daiquirí still wins hands down.  And although key limes are hard to find outside of the Caribbean and the Americas, Nick Strangeway of Hix in London has determined the optimal balance, using conventional limes and authentic Cuban rum:

Ingredients
60ml Havana Club Añejo 3 Años
12.5ml Fresh squeezed lime juice
5ml Maraschino liqueur
1 teaspoon Granulated sugar

Method
Shake the ingredients on a combination of crushed and rock ice and strain into a pre-chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a wedge of lime and a cocktail cherry. If blending, double the amount of sugar and maraschino before blending with approximately 10oz of crushed ice.

[This article was originally published in German in 2009 in Mixology Magazine.]