Papa Doble – Classic Recipe & History

Papa Doble
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How to make the Papa Doble and Hemingway Daiquiri

Papa Doble

4 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Cuban
Servings

1

servings
Calories

228

kcal
ABV

40%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make a Papa Doble like Hemingway would have.

Ingredients

  • 1 oz 1 Lime Juice

  • 4 oz 4 Aged Rum

Directions

  • Technique: Tiki Dirty Pour
  • Combine all ingredients into a shaker with crushed ice.Papa Doble
  • Vigorously shake for 10 seconds.Papa Doble
  • Dirty pour the whole shaker into a glass. Crushed ice and all.Papa Doble

Recipe Video

Notes

History Of The Papa Doble

Some of the earliest references to the papa doble come from the January 1949 issue of Life Magazine. The writer tells the story of how Hemingway earned the name papa from his fellow military officers and how to order the papa doble in Cuba.

“The officers of the 4th division had an affectionate variety of nick-names for him Ernie, … Kraut hunter, or old dr. Hemingstein, … Ernie Hemorrhoid, poor man’s Pyle, but mostly they called him papa. Those were the names he liked the best and they have followed him back to Cuba.”

“You order a Daiquiri, trying to explain how you want it made, and the waiter at the Café Florida says brightly, “Como Papá?” If you answer, “Yes, like Papa,” a double Daiquiri without sugar appears in a shaker brimful of shaved ice.”

Hemingway was both an alcoholic and a diabetic. So he took his drinks strong and sugar-free. No one ever specifics what kind of rum to use, but the papa doble is pretty good if prepared with a nice aged rum. Similar to tequila and lime or dropping a lime in beer the Papa Doble is a cool refreshing drink of rum with a little bit of citrus. If prepared this way and served as a dirty pour (ice from the shaker and all) the Papa Doble is a nice drink and the aged rum gives it enough sweetness and flavor to make up for its lack of sugar.

Keep in mind that the Papa Doble and the Hemingway Daiquiri are not the same drink. The two are often considered the same, and the Hemingway daiquiri is also called a Papa Doble. The Papa Doble was a very different cocktail that most people would not like. The Hemingway Daiquiri as we know it today started to appear around the 1960s. One of its earliest references is from the publication “Cuba, Paloma de Vuelo Popular” by Nestor Teran. Teran refers to the cocktail as the Hemingway Special at Bar Floridita. If Hemingway had this cocktail, it was probably much later in his life (he passed in 1961), and residents knew this was not the Papa Doble but a different cocktail entirely.

Recipe Resources

Papa Doble References

Hemingway Daiquiri References

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Kamikaze Cocktail – Original Recipe & History

Kamikaze Cocktail
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Kamikaze

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

100

kcal
ABV

40%

Total time

2

minutes

How to make a Kamikaze cocktail.

Ingredients

  • 1 dash 1 Lime Juice

  • 1 dash 1 Orange Liqueur

  • 1.5 oz 1.5 Vodka

Directions

  • Technique: Simple Combine
  • Simply combine the ingredients together.
  • This works best if the ingredients are pre-chilled.

Featured Video

The History Of The Kamikaze Cocktail

The Kamikaze was most likely invented in the early 1970s. In the January 1989 issue of Motorboating and Sailing Magazine, cocktail writer John Mariani states Tony Lauriano created the Kamikaze in 1972. While working at Les Pyrenees restaurant in New York, he originally named the drink the Jesus Christ Superstar after the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway show. People thought the name was too weird, and it was renamed the Kamikaze soon after, as drinking a couple of them will send you into a destructive nosedive. In the October 1979 issue of Ski Magazine, on page 78, an article by Peter Miller provides a different origin about the Kamikaze cocktail spread in popularity. Miller states the kamikaze first came out of Florida (though he does not give a specific name as Mariani does) in the early to mid-1970s, and from there, it moved to New York. Once it became popular in New York, the cocktail spread to the rest of the country. The Kamikaze became particularly popular in the ski resorts of North America. The Kamikaze is named for its strength and the idea that it’s a one-way trip once you start to drink them. Miller’s article predates Mariani’s article by ten years, and proximity to creation is important. Miller also provides the oldest known recipe for the Kamikaze. Either one could be true or neither.

  • 1.5 oz of prechilled Vodka
  • A dash of lime juice
  • 1 drop of Cointreau

The cocktail is not mixed with ice as the ingredients are already pre-chilled in the freezer. Combine in the glass and serve.

The oldest reference I can find to the Kamikaze cocktail is in a 1975 public state disclosure of different companies marketing records. In 1975 Montebello Brands Inc began selling a premixed bottled cocktail called the Original Kamikaze Cocktail, a mix of vodka, orange liqueur, and lemon juice. Montebello has no official product page for the product, but it can be seen here on Wine Chateau. Most likely, the mixed drink came before the pre-mixed bottle, but this shows that by 1975 the cocktail was well known enough for a pre-mix to sell.

Recipe Resources

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Brown Derby – Original Recipe & History

Brown Derby
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Brown Derby

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

300

kcal
Total time

3

minutes

How to make the Brown Derby

Ingredients

  • 1 oz 1 Grapefruit Juice

  • 1 oz 1 Honey Syrup

  • 2 oz 2 Bourbon

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Featured Video

The History Of The Brown Derby Cocktail.

The Brown Derby cocktail first appeared in the 1933 book “Hollywood Cocktails.” The Brown Derby was the house cocktail of the Los Angeles-based Brown Derby, a chain of formal high-end restaurants shaped like derby hats. Wilson Mizner opened the Brown Derby in 1926 to coincide with the release of the 1926 silent film “The Brown Derby,” starring Johnny Hines, Ruth Dwyer, and Edmund Breese.

Although this cocktail is commonly known as the Brown Derby, the exact recipe for the Brown Derby first appeared in the 1930 “Savoy Cocktail Book” as the “De Rigueur.” It could be a coincidence, but chances are the Brown Derby got the recipe from the Savoy. We will never know for sure, but two whiskey cocktails with the exact same proportions of grapefruit juice and honey being developed independently seem unlikely to me. But maybe they did.

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Honey Hole – Beautiful Floral Cocktail

Honey Hole
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Honey Hole

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

300

kcal
Total time

3

minutes

How to make the Honey Hole.

Ingredients

  • 1 oz 1 Lemon Juice

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Honey Syrup

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Elderflower Liqueur

  • 2 oz 2 Rye Whiskey

Directions

  • Technique: Tiki Dirty Pour
  • Combine all ingredients into a shaker with crushed ice.
  • Vigorously shake for 10 seconds.
  • Dirty pour the whole shaker into a glass. Crushed ice and all.

Featured Video

What Does The Honey Hole Taste Like?

The honey hole is a beautiful blend of floral flavors with spice. The flowery sweetness of the elderflower liqueur and honey are balanced well with the spiciness of the rye. You can choose to pour this neat if you want for a short, strong pre-dinner cocktail or serve it up tiki-style and pour it dirty for a refreshing sipper. Either is good, but I choose to do it tiki-style for the photo because it is terrific served this way, and I feel this style of pouring is underrepresented.

This is not a classic cocktail, but one I made for a friend’s wedding I bartended for. The bride was on a big whiskey sour kick at the time and wanted that to be one of the drinks on the menu. They planned the wedding near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in a beautiful wildflower field, so I modified the cocktail to be floral. The bride pushed me to add the cocktail to the app and website and call it Jack’s honey hole, and while I enjoy a good dirty, off-color joke, I feel I should present the semblance of decency.

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Bees’ Knees – Original Recipe & History

Bees' Knees
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Bees’ Knees

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: French
Servings

1

servings
Calories

189

kcal
ABV

28%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the Bees’ Knees.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Lemon Juice

  • 1/3 oz 1/3 Honey Syrup

  • 2 oz 2 Dry Gin

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Featured Video

History Of The Bees’ Knees Cocktail.

The Bees’ Knees was invented by Frank Meier while working at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. The recipe was first published in his 1936 book “The Artistry of Mixing Drinks.” His original recipe is.

“In Shaker: The juice of one-quarter lemon, a teaspoon of honey, one-half glass of Gin; shake well and serve”

From my experience, half a lime or lemon is typically around a 1/2 oz (15mLs), so a quarter would be 1/4 oz (7.5 mLs). Also, a wine glass measured out to 2 oz (60 mLs), so half is 1 oz (30 mLs). The only change I made is I doubled the recipe to make the drink just a tad bit bigger since the original recipe is small.

What Does The Bees’ Knees Taste Like?

The sweet and sour flavors of the bees’ knees are spot on—just the right amount of honey and lemon. The honey adds a nice earthy floral sweetness to the bright sour lemon flavor. The gin mixes nicely, bringing a dry herbal quality to the drink that compliments while not competing with the lemon or honey. I tried making this once with vodka, and it was nowhere near as good as gin. I’ve also made rye and bourbon variations of this cocktail that are very good too.

Recipe Resources

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Ideal Cocktail – 1930s Cuban Recipe

Ideal Cocktail Sloppy Joe
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Ideal Cocktail – Sloppy Joe’s Recipe

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Cuban
Servings

1

servings
Calories

239

kcal
ABV

23%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make an Ideal Cocktail

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp 1 Simple Syrup

  • 1 oz 1 Grapefruit Juice

  • 2 oz 2 Dry Gin

  • 1 oz 1 Dry Vermouth

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Notes

Featured Video

The Many Variations Of The Ideal Cocktail.

The Ideal cocktail was invented by Hugo Ensslin and is printed in his 1917 Book “Recipes for Mixed Drinks.” The ideal cocktail is a grapefruit variation of the martini, and you can see that in the way the cocktail changed over time. As Hugo saw it, a classic martini was what we would consider today to be a sweet martini. It is made of gin and sweet vermouth. During this time and more so into the 1930s, the dry martini becomes far more popular. Modifying Hugo’s original version based on the sweet martini, Jose Abeal (owner of Sloppy Joe’s) substituted sweet vermouth for dry vermouth (like the dry martini) but made up for the sweetness with a little bit of simple syrup. Grapefruit, dry vermouth, and dry gin are a bit much, and the drink needs a little sweetness to taste good. A clean and herbal grapefruit martini is more suited for a warm tropical climate.

The History Of Sloppy Joes Cuban Bar.

There are two famous pre-revolution Cuban bars. Well, there are at least two famous pre-revolution Cuban bars that printed books and provided future generations with their recipes—Bar La Florida and Sloppy Joe’s Bar, both in Havana, Cuba. Sloppy Joe’s was created by Spanish immigrant Jose Abeal. The 1936 edition of his book details his biography. Jose immigrated from Spain to Cuba in 1904, where he worked as a bartender for three years. He then moved to New Orleans, where he worked as a bartender for another six years, and then to Miami, where he worked for another six years. Upon moving back in 1918 to Cuba, he opened a liquor store and added a bar. When a few of his American friends visited, they commented on how dirty his store was. “Why, Joe, this place is certainly sloppy, look at the filthy water running from under the counter.” They were commenting on how he let the melted ice run all over the ground. His friends would call him dirty or sloppy Joe, and the name stuck. Jose sold classic American and Cuban drinks from his liquor store and bar and Spanish and Cuban food. One of the most popular food items he sold was a traditional Spanish picadillo sandwich. A loose ground beef sandwich where the beef is cooked with crushed tomatoes, Spanish olives, spices, and herbs became more commonly known as a sloppy Joe in the United States. Although Sloppy Joe’s Picadillo sandwich is nothing like the midwestern BBQ sauce covered, Manwich style sloppy joes most of us are used to.

A political revolution later, and Sloppy Joe’s fell on hard times. Now owned by the state and American tourists prohibited from visiting, Sloppy Joe only stayed open for a couple more years. The 1959 movie “Our Man In Havana,” starting Sir Alec Guinness, features some of Sloppy Joe’s in its prime before its business dried up. After a fire in 1965, the bar and store closed entirely with no real intention to ever open again. In 2013 though, the bar was restored, where it was, as it was, and currently sells the same drinks and food items as it did in the 1930s – 1950s.

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White Lady – Classic Recipe

White Lady Cocktail
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White Lady Cocktail

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: British
Servings

1

servings
Calories

268

kcal
ABV

25%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a White Lady.

Ingredients

  • 1 Whole 1 Egg Whites

  • 2/3 oz 2/3 Lemon Juice

  • 1 oz 1 Orange Liqueur

  • 2 oz 2 Dry Gin

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Notes

Featured Video

The History Of The White Lady.

The oldest known White Lady recipe comes from the 1923 Harry MacElhone book “Harry of Ciro’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails,” His recipe is very different from the more popular Savoy recipe. The original White Lady is 1 oz brandy, 1 oz creme de menthe, and 2 oz Cointreau, shaken and strained. This version of the white lady never quite caught on; the more popular version is the Harry Craddock recipe from the Savoy.

A Short History Of The American Bar at the Savoy Hotel In London.

In 1893, The American Bar at the Savoy hotel started serving American-style cocktails in London to the British upper class. The American Bar has always been a high-end bar but what set it on the map was when Harry Craddock became its head bartender in the 1920s. Harry Craddock was a British-born bartender who immigrated to the United States, eventually becoming a US citizen and head bartender of several high-end hotel bars. Still, Harry found himself out of work with the start of prohibition in 1920. He then immigrated back to England and became head bartender of the Savoy Hotel’s Bar. Harry transformed The American Bar from a high-end bar to one of the seminal cocktail bars of the 20th century. As the American prohibition was ending, the hotel realized it should record all of its most famous recipes and the innovations Harry brought to the bar. A year later, they published the Savoy Cocktail Book. Printed in 1934, the Savoy Cocktail Book documents the bar’s best recipes from the 1890s to the 1930s and stands as the pillar of prohibition-era European cocktail innovation. If Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide is the best cocktail book the 1800s gave us, then The Savoy Cocktail Book is the best cocktail book of the first half of the 1900s. I don’t think I will ever be able to drink there, though. A cocktail cost around $250 there, and they have one that’s almost $1000, and I’m not the Amazon guy, so good thing we have their recipe book.

What Does The White Lady Taste Like?

The white lady is a fantastic velvety smooth cocktail that tastes like a gin lemon meringue. The flavor profile is similar to the sidecar or margarita, but the egg whites add a wonderful texture and smoothness.

Should You Use Cointreau, Triple Sec, Or Curaçao?

You can use Cointreau or triple sec/Curaçao/orange liqueur. Technically they are all orange liqueurs, and the only reason for the different names is history, marketing gimmicks, and brand names. Check out my orange liqueur description for a more detailed account of that. Again you don’t have to use Cointreau; any orange liqueur will work. On that note, though, Cointreau is the best and makes for what I think is a noticeably better cocktail. The only downside to Cointreau is its price tag. It’s a little pricier than other brands (around 50 bucks for a liter), but it’s worth it. There have been other delicious and pricy orange liqueurs to hit the market in the last few years, but Cointreau is still the go-to.

How To Get Great Foam On Cocktails With Egg Whites.

Egg Whites are challenging to get right in cocktails. Everyone struggles with them at some point, and bartenders search for any way to make whipping them into a fluffy meringue easier. Henry Ramos hired “shaker boys” to shake for him. Some use the dry shake or reverse dry shake, others swear by only using one large ice cube, and some say you have to shake till your arms fall off. The method I like is called the Saxe Shake, and De Forest Saxe invented it in the 1880s.

The Saxe Shake is largely unknown in the cocktail world because De Forest Saxe was a soda fountain operator in Chicago, Illinois. His 1890 book “Saxe’s New Guide Hints to Soda Water Dispensers” details his shaking technique for egg drinks that produces the best foam and can be accomplished with minimal effort. Saxe states to shake drinks with eggs with only one chestnut-sized ice cube. An Ice cube from a standard ice tray is about chestnut-sized, so one or two small cubes will work. Then shake until the ice fully melts, and pour into the serving glass without straining. The small amount of ice is just enough to cool and dilute the drink, and since there are no remaining bits of ice left in the shaker, there is nothing to strain. Passing the mixture through a strainer destroys most of the bubbles you worked so hard to make. As you add soda water, the escaping carbon dioxide fills the tiny bubbles in the drink, forcing them to expand and form a large fluffy foam. Give it a try. Using the Saxe Shake, I have turned out Ramos Gin Fizzes as fast and efficiently as any other shaken cocktail with excellent results.

Recipe Resources.

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Jack Rose – Classic Recipe & History

Jack Rose
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Quick Step-By-Step Jack Rose Recipe Video

Jack Rose

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

181

kcal
ABV

25%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a Jack Rose.

Ingredients

  • 1 oz 1 Lime Juice

  • 1 oz 1 Grenadine

  • 2 oz 2 Apple Brandy

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.
  • Garnish:
  • Lemon peel

Recipe Video

Notes

The Many Recipes Of The Jack Rose

There seem to be as many recipes for the Jack Rose as there are cocktail books. The Ensslin recipe is equal parts lime juice, grenadine, and apple brandy. The McElhone recipe includes dry and sweet vemouth with orange juice. Another book uses grapefruit juice, and others have gin. Long story short no two recipes are the same except for the Waldorf-Astoria’s recipe and Savoy’s recipe. While not exactly the same they use the same ingredients and almost the same proportions. Waldorf-Astoria’s recipe has maybe 1/3 oz more grenadine but thats the only difference. Both of those bars recipes were top notch and their similarity is why I am going with their recipes. Also their recipes are the ones later cocktail books will continue to use too.

out of all the jack rose recipes i have tied the Waldorf-Astroia and Savoy recipes are my favorite. The Waldorf-Astoria recipe reminds me of daiquiri. It has the same proportions and sweet to sour ratio as a daiquiri. The Savoy one reminds me of a normal whiskey sour. It is a bit more sour than sweet and fresher and lighter in flavor than the Waldorf-Astoria recipe. The attached recipe is the Waldorf-Astoria but for reference the Savoy recipe is 1/2 oz grenadine, 1 oz lime juice, 2 oz apple brandy, while the Waldorf-Astoria recipe is 1 oz grenadine, 1 oz lime juice, and 2 oz apple brandy. Both are fantastic.

The Most Important Ingredient In A Jack Rose.

The most important ingredient in a jack rose is the grenadine. A good grenadine will make all the difference in this cocktail. unfortuantly most store bought Grenadines are not that great. They tend to be more sweet than flavorful; Just sugar water with red color. Luckly its easy to make your own amazing grenadine for not much more than the cost of a budget store bought one. A liter of finest call grenadine is around $6, A 2 liter bottle of pure pomegranate juice is maybe $10, a 4 pound bag of sugar is $7 and orange blossom wate is $3. So for $10 a liter, and 10 minutes of cook time, you can have amazing grenadine. Some top shelf store bought Grenadines can go for $15 for 8 oz. To put that in perspective thats $60 a liter. Grenadine is very easy to make, check out my article on how to make it, and it will make all the difference in a great jack rose.

What Is Grenadine?

Grenadine is a simple pomegranate syrup, and it originated in Persia (modern-day Iran), where it is called Rob-e-anar and is a traditional ingredient in some Persian dishes. In Persian cooking, it is boiled down to a molasses-like thickness, but when used in cocktails, the thinner syrup viscosity mixes easier. The word grenadine comes from the French word for pomegranate, grenade. During the 19th century, pomegranate syrup was mainly unknown in the United States, yet syrups made from raspberries and strawberries were much more common in drinks. Grenadine starts to get popular as a cocktail ingredient in the US around the 20th century. Some of the first grenadine cocktails appear in George Kappeler’s (Of the New York’s Holland House Hotel) 1895 Modern American Drinks and Louis Fouquet’s 1896 Bariana. Grenadine most likely started as a European syrup that quickly made its way to the United States and by the 1910s became a much more common syrup in mixed drinks. It’s around this time that cocktails like the Jack rose and ward 8 come about. Regional variations of some drinks still exist, though; these result from Americans having a long history of using raspberry or strawberry syrups. For example, the rose cocktail in American cocktail books often used raspberry syrup, and English cocktail books used grenadine. Another example is the clover club cocktail, wherein the United States is made with raspberry syrup, but in English books like the savoy, it’s made with grenadine.

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Caipirinha – Classic Recipe & History

Caipirinha
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Caipirinha

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Brazilian
Servings

1

servings
Calories

231

kcal
ABV

31%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Caipirinha.

Ingredients

  • 3 wedges 3 Lime or Green Unripe Lemon

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Simple Syrup

  • 2 oz 2 Cachaça

Directions

  • Technique: Build In Glass
  • Muddle 3 lime wedges in the serving glass to get the juice and oils out of the lime.
  • Add crushed ice to the glass.
  • Pour the cachaça and simple syrup into the glass and mix it all together.

Notes

Featured Video

History Of The Caipirinha

The earliest Caipirinha recipe I can find comes from the 1963 book “The Brazilian Cookbook” by Irene Moliterno. I have a hard time finding anything on this cocktail before the 1960s. It doesn’t help that the word caipirinha is a common term in Portuguese, meaning “little country folk.” For that reason, this was a very difficult cocktail to research, and it was easier to search for occurrences of cachaça and açúcar together. This was also an issue because cachaça is made from sugar. Trust me; I searched not only English but primarily Portuguese language works. Today the word Caipirinha is wholly associated with the drink.

Although first mentioned in the 1960s the Caipirinha wasn’t written about much in the 1990s. By the 1990s, many cocktail books included a caipirinha recipe, and the cocktails exploded in popularity in the 2000s. No one knows the origins of the Caipirinha, but it most likely originated out of the southern end of Brazil in Sao Paulo. Some theorize it was invented during WWI but who knows? I have my idea below that it is somehow related to an older Brazilian drink called the “Kaingang de Palmas,” but I have no evidence to say they are related; it’s just that they are very similar.

Is Rum A Substitute For Cachaça?

The national cocktail of Brazil, the Caipirinha, is a fantastic drink with a sweet citrus and vegetal flavor. I don’t usually get particular about stuff like this, but If you are not using cachaça, you are not making a Caipirinha. Even though it is classified the same as rum, rum is not a substitute for cachaça. While rum has a sweet toasted dark caramel taste, cachaça tastes more like a grassy and lightly sweet vodka. Cachaça is what makes the drink, and using rum would turn it into a daiquiri.

The Caipirinha’s Potential Indigenous Roots.

Not to say there is a direct line to draw between these two drinks, but I found the Caipirinha is very similar to an older traditional Brazilian drink called the Kaingang de Palmas. In the 1937 Book “Ensaios de Ethologia Brasileira” Brazilian ethnologist, Herbert Baldus, mentions how the indigenous Kaingang villages in southern Brazil celebrate June festivities “Festa Junina” by making a drink of cachaça, sugar, young unripe corn (milho verde), and water. The drink is called Kaingang de Palmas, meaning Kaingang applause or Kaingang clap/cheer. The Kaingang were an indigenous people whose area included Sao Paulo, the believed origin of the Caipirinha. Like the Kaingang de Palmas using unripe corn, a traditional Brazilian Caipirinha is made with unripe green lemons. Not limes. Caipirinha loosely translates to “little country person,” which is what the indigenous peoples were seen as by city dwellers.

I understand this is a stretch, and there is no evidence I can find saying that they are related, but there are many similarities between the Caipirinha and the Kaingang de Palmas.

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Daiquiri – Classic Recipe & History

Daiquiri Cocktail
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Daiquiri

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Cuban
Servings

1

servings
Calories

241

kcal
ABV

21%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Daiquiri.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Lime Juice

  • 1/3 oz 1/3 Simple Syrup

  • 2 oz 2 White Rum

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Notes

Featured Video

What Does the Daiquiri Taste Like?

The Daiquiri is a fantastic cocktail that can be either sweet or tart, depending on the amount of simple syrup added. Rum can be pretty sweet, to begin with, so edging on the side of tart balances the rum nicely. Many topical cocktail enthusiasts cite the daiquiri as the foundation of tiki or exotic cocktails, but it’s a traditional sour with spirit, citrus, and sweetener. It’s still a fantastic drink with endless variations.

The History Of the Daiquiri

The common history of the Daiquiri was invented in late 1800 by the American miner Jennings Cox. Cox was a manager at the Daiquiri mines in Santiago, Cuba. Some put the creation of the daiquiri around 1905, but regardless it’s often thought to have been invented during that range. Who knows if this is true or not? Even the most academic articles I can find on Caribbean cocktails put an asterisk on this statement and say it is just the story that has survived through the years.

We can definitively say the Daiquiri’s first published appearances came around 1913. The earliest Daiquiri recipe comes from the 1913 cocktail book “Straub’s Manual” by Jacques Straub. The recipe is actually pretty awful, but it is the oldest. It’s 2 oz lime juice, 1 oz rum, and a tsp of sugar. Interestingly the daiquiri is spelled with a “g” instead of a “q” as daiguiri. Every American cocktail book until prohibition spells it this way, and any news article mentioning the daiquiri mines spells it this way too. The Daiquiri mines were an important topic during the lead-up to the Spanish-American war, and all of the journalism from this time spelled it with a “g” too. It’s not too surprising it was misspelled, though. This was the start of yellow journalism, and most national news leading up to the Spanish-American war was not concerned with accuracy. The best early recipe for the daiquiri comes from the 1914 U.S. Navy Standard Publication. A periodical by the U.S. Navy mentions the Daiquiri as the latest in cocktail clubdom. They also spelled it correctly. The recipe they provide is a pony of rum, the juice of half a lime or lemon, and a little bit of sugar. Generally, half a lime provides 1/2 oz of juice, and I’ll take a little bit of sugar to be either a tsp or 1/3 of an oz, but they were not trying to be precise.

In the 1931 book “Cuban Cookery” by Blanche de Baralt, the author states that cocktails were not part of the culture in Cuba before the Spanish-American War. American-style cocktails were first brought there by the soldiers stationed there and the tourist that soon followed. Enamored with the high-quality rum and juices available on the island, many new Cuban cocktails were invented. She specifically calls out the Daiquiri. Baralt provides an alternative origin for the Daiquiri that sounds more accurate. She states the U.S. Naval Officers stationed in Guantanamo Bay made the drink on base and named it after the nearby mining town. This makes much more sense to me, and it would also explain why one of the earliest records of the daiquiri comes from a U.S. Naval publication and that they are the only ones to spell it correctly for decades.

Most people probably know the recipe from the two main cocktail books to come out of Cuba in the 1930s. Sloppy Joe’s and Bar La Florida. Sloppy Joe’s recipe is more on the sour end with a whole ounce of lime juice, but Bar La Florida’s recipe is identical to the U.S. Navy recipe. A comment brought this to my attention, but the Bar La Florida cocktail book is mistranslated. The Bar La Florida cocktail book has Spanish on the left and English on the right; in every place, limes are mentioned, and the English side says lemons. The book uses the older term for limes, limón verde, but the English translation says lemons. Just keep that in mind when looking at recipes in that book.

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