19th July: National Daiquiri Day

Daiquiris are a family of cocktails made from Rum, Lime juice, sugar and ice. There are variations such as the strawberry daiquiri. 10 things you may not know about daiquiris:

Photo: Aaron Gustafson from Hamden, CT, USA

1. Daiquiri is the name of a beach and an iron mining village in Cuba. While we would more readily associate a drink like this with the beach, the inventor, Stockton Cox, was in fact working in the iron mine when he came up with the idea. The very first daiquiris were called “Ron Bacardi a la Daiquiri.”
2. When William A. Chanler, a US congressman, bought the Santiago Iron Mines in 1902, he discovered the new local drink and introduced it to clubs in New York.
3. Early daiquiris were served in a tall glass, and mixed in the glass. Nowadays it all goes into a cocktail shaker and from there into a chilled flute glass.
4. The recipe for a daiquiri is very similar to the "grog" that British sailors used to drink at sea in the 18th century to ward off scurvy.
5. A standard sized daiquiri contains 112 calories and is 2% Vitamin C.
6. The drink took off even more in the 1940s, possibly because rationing in the US made most spirits hard to get, but Roosevelt's policy of encouraging trade with near neighbours, including Cuba and the Caribbean, meant that rum was easily available.
7. Ernest Hemingway was famously fond of daiquiris. He liked them without the sugar, and legend has it that he once drank 13 doubles in one sitting.
8. In a Havana, Cuba, bar called El Floridita, there is a statue of Hemingway and the bartenders put a daiquiri next to the statue each day.
9. President John F Kennedy was also a fan.
10. El Floridita celebrated its 195th anniversary in 2012 and to celebrate, bartenders created a 71 gallon daiquiri in a 6 and a half foot tall glass (or 270 litres in a 2 meter glass, if you prefer).