The Origins of the "Daiquiri"
By Patrick McSherry
Please Visit our Home
Page to learn more about the Spanish American War
General:
The alcoholic drink, the daiquiri, has its origins dating back at
least to the Spanish American War.
The History:
The daiquiri, according to most sources,
can trace its history back to the years following the Spanish American War
in Cuba, when American iron miners set up operations on the island. One of
those miners was Jennings Stockton Cox, whose mining operation was in the
vicinity of the Cuban town of Daiquiri. Cox is generally given credit for
inventing the drink called the “daiquiri,” which he named for the town.
Daiquiri was the site of the first landing of Major General Rufus
Shafter’s Fifth Corps in its assault on Santiago.
However, there are earlier references to the drink that would become known
as the Daquiri. N. G. Gonzalez was an American citizen and newspaper
correspondent who had been born in Cuba. During the war, he joined the
staff of Cuban General Nunez, and returned to Cuba to take up the fight
against the Spanish. When Nunez returned to Florida to attempt to raise
more troops for another expedition, Gonzalez stayed behind and nominally
served on the staff of Col. Rodriquez. In this capacity he met Maximo
Gomez, the overall commander of the Cuban insurgent forces. It was Gomez
who introduced him to the drink that would become the daiquiri. Gonzalez
described the meeting as follows:
“Before the
powwow began, the General did the honors by handing out his precious
flask of rum and a silver cup, of and from which we partook. At the
close of it he treated Captain Johnson to a mango and me to a lime [food
was a scarce commodity for the Cuban insurgent forces], and then he
suggested to me the advisability of putting the lime to its best use. So
he rummaged out another flask with a very fine aromatic decoction of
cane syrup, and out of this, the juice of the lime and some more of the
rum, he brewed me a punch which surpassed even the best efforts of the
lamented William Hayne, the majordomo of the Columbia club in its palmy
days. From the expression on my face, Johnson saw that I had got hold of
a good thing, so he dropped his unripe mango and put up a look of
inquiry. Thereupon the General brewed him one also. If I had had that
punch two days before after my swamp trip, I would have been Willing to
canonize Maximo Gomez. But it was very nice even two days after.”
The combination of ingredients mentioned by Gomez constitute a “daiquiri.”
It would appear that the combination was already in use by the time of the
Spanish American War and not invented by Cox as is traditionally thought.
The first recorded recipe for the drink, which is attributed to Jennings
Stockton Cox, is to serve six people and is as follows:
The juice
of 5 lemons
6 teaspoons sugar
6 cups of Bacardi Carta Blanca (rum)
2 cups of mineral water
Crushed ice
Interestingly, this “first” recorded formal
recipe for the famous lime drink actually does not include lime, but lemon
instead. It seems that in Cuba foreigners had a tendency to mistake green,
unripe lemons as limes. Gonzalez noted in his travels with General Gomez
that “…only the lemons are ripe, these being the small wild variety known
in the States as limes.” Therefore, it is also unclear whether Gomez’
concoction, described by Gonzalez, actually contained lime or lemon!
Bibliography:
"Classic Cocktails in History: the
Daiquiri," The Alcohol
Professor.
alcoholprofessor.com/blog-posts/blog/2014/05/14/classic-cocktails-in-history-the-daiquiri
(10/30/20).
Gonzalez, N. G., In
Darkest Cuba: Two Months' Service Under Gomez Along the Trocha From
the Caribbean to the Bahama Channel. (Columbia, S.C: The State
Company, 1922), 231.
Support this
Site by Visiting the Website Store! (help
us defray costs!)
We are providing
the following service for our readers. If you are interested in
books, videos, CD's etc. related to the Spanish American War, simply
type in "Spanish American War" (or whatever you are interested
in) as the keyword and click on "go" to get a list of titles
available through Amazon.com.
Visit Main Page
for copyright data