Cuban · Cocktail
Daiquiri
Rum, lime and sugar. Two ounces of white rum, one ounce of fresh lime juice, three quarters of an ounce of simple syrup, shaken hard and served up. That's the entire drink.
Photo: Marcelo Verfe / Pexels
Ingredients
- 2 oz Bacardi Superior white rum
- 1 oz fresh lime juice
- 0.75 oz simple syrup
- Lime wheel, to garnish
Method
- Put the rum, lime juice and syrup into a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard for ten seconds. It should frost on the outside.
- Double-strain into a chilled coupe so no ice chips get through.
- Float a lime wheel on top. Drink it cold or not at all.
The one thing that matters
Fresh lime only. This is the drink where bottled juice is most obvious, because there's nothing else in the glass to cover for it.
About this drink
It has nothing to do with the frozen strawberry thing that borrowed the name. A proper daiquiri is sharp, clean and served cold in a small glass, and it hasn't needed changing since about 1900.
If a bar can make a good daiquiri they can make anything. There's nowhere to hide in three ingredients: each one tastes of exactly itself, and the balance is either right or obviously wrong.
Shake hard for ten seconds. The outside of the shaker should frost. Then double-strain so no ice chips get through into the glass, because a daiquiri with shards floating in it melts to nothing while you drink it.
Chill the glass first if you have room in the freezer. A cold glass buys you five more minutes of the drink being what it's supposed to be.
Worth knowing: add half an ounce of maraschino liqueur and two dashes of bitters and it's a Hemingway. Swap the syrup for a spoon of raspberry puree and it's still a daiquiri, and a better one than the frozen version ever was.
