The Daiquiri, Three Ways

(This post is part of a series that I’m using to help write my next book, the new edition of 100 Classic Cocktails, and provide inspiration for home bartenders in these times of social distancing. Some of the recipes are ones I’m trying to workshop, and I’m asking my readers to test the recipes at home if able and send me their thoughts on the questions I have. Others are ones I think I’ve nailed that can be easily made with common household ingredients, and I’m sharing them to help my readers keep their spirits up while spending a lot more time at home than usual. I’ll always specify which is which. For more background on all of this, including the book, you can check out the first post in the series here. All posts will be tagged “(100) Classic Cocktails”.)

The Daiquiri is an unambiguous classic: it’s simple, it’s elegant, and it’s delicious. It’s also the archetype of drinks that are easy to make and hard to master, so much so that it’s often held up as a particularly good test to administer to a bartender to see if they know their stuff.

We’re going to do things a little differently today and lead off with a recipe. The Daiquiri is one I’d love to get feedback on and you probably have everything you need for it if you’ve been following along at home. So consider it today’s Question/Quarantine Cocktail:

Still Life of a Daiquiri, No. 67.

Daiquiri
2 oz. White Rum
3/4 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
3/4 oz. 1:1 Simple Syrup

Shake. Strain into a chilled cocktail or coupe glass.

That’s the recipe I’m expecting to print in the new edition of Classic Cocktails. But on the night that I tested the Daiquiri, here’s what I actually made:

No Lie, The Best Daiquiri I’ve Ever Made
2 oz. Unaged Rum (House Blend)
3/4 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz. 1:1 Simple Syrup
1 tsp. 2:1 Demerara Simple Syrup

Shake about 1.5x longer than you otherwise would. Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Let’s review the differences and get to my questions for home tasters from there.

First, I hadn’t meant to use a house blend of rums for the base, but I had (I’d guess) about 1 3/4 oz. of the Wiggly Bridge rum left, so I topped the jigger up with Privateer. Honestly, I think that was a good move, but it’s not necessary to have a house rum blend to make a good Daiquiri.

But let’s investigate our rum terminology a bit. “White,” “silver,” and “light” as rum descriptors are extraordinarily common and basically useless. And so, I’m afraid, are “amber,” “gold,” and “dark.” All of these terms describe the color of the rum, but rum is unusual among spirits in that the color has relatively little to do with the flavor.

One would expect a clear rum to be unaged, but it’s actually very common for them to be aged for 2-3 years* in oak barrels and then filtered before bottling. This is a part of the tradition especially among Hispanophone rum-producing countries - even the lauded white rums of Cuba are generally aged and filtered - and if done well, the filtering process takes the color without stripping away interesting flavor. But that just means the rums will play differently in cocktails than unaged rums would, acting at least somewhat more like lightly-aged rums.

Speaking of which, color is also pretty meaningless in gauging the flavor of brown rums, because color is frequently added. For the most part, this is again done in a way that is supposed to be flavor-neutral: just enough caramel coloring to make a straw-colored aged rum look “amber,” but not enough to be perceptible (caramel coloring has a bitter taste, so the producers really don’t want you to be able to pick it out). But there are instances of unaged rums being colored in the same way, and of course there are many producers throughout the world whose rums are actually, y’know, colored by their aging process and nothing else.

“Dark” rums have the starkest intra-category contrast. Some pretty dark rums get that way from extended wood exposure. But even if a very dark rum has spent a long time in barrels, chances are it gets its hue primarily from added coloring. Often this comes in the form of a big dollop of added molasses, which does change the rum’s flavor, as well as its viscosity. I follow the brilliant recommendation of Martin Cate in Smuggler’s Cove (if you like rum, tiki, cocktail history, or good drinks, pick up a copy to devour while self-isolating) in describing this last group as “black rums,” because they actually are defined by their color. In recipes, you’ll sometimes want to specify a rum with that consistency and profile, but the existing terms are unhelpful. “Dark” can also mean aged and unsweetened/uncolored rums, while the term “blackstrap rum” that has gained some currency is equally useless, because basically all rum that is distilled from molasses is distilled from blackstrap molasses, whether or not more is added for color after distillation.

In Classic Cocktails, I plan to dispense with this nonsense and call specifically for unaged, aged, or black rum, with further precision by island or style as necessary - e.g., “unaged Martinique rhum agricole.”

So, why in the above Daiquiri recipe did I say ‘white rum’? Because consumers mostly don’t know that these color terms are meaningless yet. I have every expectation that some of them will use aged and filtered ‘white’ rums in making the unaged rum recipes. And so, to the…

First Question for Home Testers: I’d like you to try this Daiquiri with whatever sort of white rum you currently have in your house. If you do this, contact me and let me know how you liked the recipe, and whether your white rum is actually unaged or aged and filtered (or you’re unable to determine, in which case please also share the brand name). I believe the recipe will hold up fine regardless.

“But,” I hear you cry, “the title of this post implies three versions of the Daiquiri. What was that about?” I’m glad you asked!

The other big change I made to the Daiquiri recipe for my own preparation, which I think was probably the biggest game-changer in terms of flavor, was to incorporate a teaspoon of 2:1 Demerara simple syrup in addition to the regular 1:1 stuff made with white sugar. It was a stunningly good flavor choice. It also feels kind of fastidious to publish a recipe for a fairly common cocktail that calls for two different kinds of homemade sugar syrup.

So, I’d like you guys to try some variations. The one I led off with, with 3/4 oz. of 1:1 simple syrup, should get you to a similar place in terms of overall sweetness as 1/2 oz. 1:1 simple syrup plus 1 tsp. 2:1 Demerara. I know the second one is really good. I invite you to make it if you have or can easily prepare both kinds of simple syrup. But I need feedback more on the first one, because that’s the one I expect most of the book’s readers will actually end up making.

Additionally, if you’re feeling particularly helpful and/or experimental, I’d like you to try version number three:

The Reverse-Simó-Sidecar Daiquiri
2 oz. White Rum
3/4 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 oz. 1:1 Simple Syrup

Shake. Strain into a chilled cocktail or coupe glass rimmed with sugar.

See, Joaquin Simó advises adding a barspoon of rich Demerara simple syrup to the Sidecar to get it to balance properly - a problem so famously tricky that many contemporary bartenders have written off the Sidecar entirely. Meanwhile Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric, in the Employees Only cocktail book Speakeasy (the first good cocktail guide I ever owned, and another excellent read if you’re stuck at home) come out in favor of the semi-traditional sugar rim on the Sidecar for the same reason: it needs that extra touch of sweetness.

In testing the recipes for the new edition of Classic Cocktails, I learned that the Beachcomber also semi-traditionally has a sugared rim, and discovered that a bit of added sugar really does improve the drink. So while it’s not particularly traditional in the Daiquiri, I’d like you to help me test my theory that we can reverse-engineer the effects of the teaspoon of 2:1 Demerara syrup by sugaring the rim of the glass. Which brings us to the…

Second Question for Home Testers: If you can try the first Daiquiri (with 3/4 oz. 1:1 simple syrup), I’d love for you to also try the third (with 1/2 oz. 1:1 simple syrup) and let me know how they compare. Feedback on either independent of the other is of course still welcome.

Never rimmed a glass before? It’s easy. You want to moisten the lip of the glass first, which is best accomplished by getting it nice and cold and using condensation to your advantage. You can put it in the freezer for a little bit or fill it up with ice and wait. If you’re feeling impatient, you can also run an ice cube or a wedge of lime around the edge until it’s sufficiently wet (though note that using the lime will affect the flavor). Then, pour some plain white sugar into a dish. If the dish is large enough, simply overturn the glass into the sugar, press down, and give it a spin or two. Sugar should cling to the glass when you pick it back up. If you have a smaller dish, press one side of the glass into the sugar instead and give it a few gentle spins until the rim is coated. That’s it! You can also use this technique with salt for a Margarita.

Notes

(*) 2-3 years is common, but there are other options, too: Bacardi Superior is aged for a minimum of 1 year and then filtered, while Flor de Caña’s white rum is aged for 4 - and they also have an amber rum with the same age statement.

Patriots' Day Recap: Boston Cocktails

I did promise to put up these recipes, didn't I? Well, I'm a man of my word. Enjoy the two most Bostonian of all Boston cocktails!

Ward Eight
2 oz. Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
3/4 oz. Orange Juice
Grenadine to Taste
Shake, strain, and serve up. Garnish with a tiny Massachusetts flag stuck through a maraschino cherry, if you can find such a thing.

Periodista
1 1/2 oz. Dark Rum
1/2 oz. Orange Liqueur
1/2 oz. Apricot Liqueur
1/2 oz. Lime Juice
Shake, strain, and serve up. Garnish with a lime wheel, a lime wedge, or nothing at all (there's quite a bit of lime in there already).

These drinks are "Bostonian" in very different ways - though both, in my view, have a better claim to that title than the I-guess-technically-it-counts Boston Sour, Boston Sidecar, and so on. I've not been able to find any information on the pedigree of those old drinks to bear out the choice of namesake. These two, on the other hand...

The Ward Eight has been around for more than a hundred years, and was probably invented at Locke-Ober. There is some disagreement on whether or not to include the orange juice, and on whether or not to add seltzer on top. There is some speculation that its alleged date of invention was too early for grenadine to have been readily available; there is counter-speculation that the scarcity of the signature ingredient was precisely what made the drink so special when it was first concocted. There is the awkward fact that the man in whose honor the cocktail was invented, and after whose ward it was named, tried and failed to get people to call it something else for years afterwards. 

In short, there is a lot of mystery surrounding this drink. But that's as it should be. Old drinks, if they're good, tend to acquire myths. If you're interested in a deeper dive into the history, I highly recommend Stephanie Schorrow's (extensive) treatment in Drinking Boston.

For our purposes, what matters most is that the Ward Eight has stood unchallenged as Boston's emissary to the cocktail-drinkers of the world for something on the order of a century. It's definitely ours, and it's what we're best known for. My preferred recipe matches this one from David Wondrich, but particularly in light of the drink's muddled history, you should feel quite free to play around with the proportions.

As for the Periodista, its history is in many ways quite the opposite. It's a young recipe, celebrating its twenty-first birthday this year (presumably by ordering a few rounds of itself). We know that it was invented at Chez Henri in Cambridge. It's a local drink, ubiquitous in greater Boston but unknown to the rest of the world. Our delicious little secret.

There's a lot more to the story, but I won't spoil the fun here. Devin Hahn, the man who first figured out where this drink came from, has written a gorgeous narrative of his journey to the truth in twenty-three parts. You can binge your way through it in an hour or two; if you're even slightly considering that, I promise you it's worth it. The story begins here.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who came to the Patriots' Day party for an in-person lesson on these drinks! Stay tuned for more announcements of public events! (And one other major announcement coming soon - mysterious, eh?)

The Twenty-Four Nineteen

So named for the (roughly) 24" of snow this storm's dropped on us so far, which has been falling (last I checked) at about 19 degrees.

Like most of Massachusetts, today I was both physically unable and legally forbidden to stray very far from home. My solution to this problem was to invent a cocktail.

The restriction I placed on myself - because being limited to ingredients I already had on hand wasn't enough of one - was that each component of the drink had to be specifically connected, somehow, to my experience of this storm.

Last night, on my way home, I stopped into a liquor store to stock up. Item one on my agenda was dark rum, since I'd killed my previous bottle over the weekend, and there's really nothing better than a rich dark rum when it's snowing. (This is also true when it isn't snowing, but it's less obvious then.)

Item two, chiefly because the store happened to have it and to have it very visible, was a bottle of Meletti, an amaro I enjoy very much but had never previously purchased for myself. If not for the storm, I wouldn't have gotten either it or the rum last night; both went into the drink.

In my fridge, there is half a tired lemon, left over from pre-blizzard experiments. I have no other lemons or limes. Until the snow stops and the stores reopen, all the citrus I consume will come from that half lemon. A small portion of it went into the drink.

Finally, a cocktail themed after this specific storm would hardly be complete without a piece of this specific storm, by which I mean snow.

Those little droplets on the sides? That's snow. I opened my window, stuck my hand outside, and allowed Mother Nature to deliver unto the cocktail its final and signature ingredient. It needed a touch of water anyway.

And thus, as Frankenstein's monster from a lightning bolt, was born the Twenty-Four Nineteen.

24:19
1 oz. Rhum Barbancourt
1/4 oz. Amaro Meletti
4 drops lemon juice squeezed out of a tired old half-lemon by hand
1 rough-cut twist from the same tired old half-lemon, used to rim the glass and then dropped in
As much snow as you can capture in the otherwise-finished cocktail by thrusting it out into the elements until it becomes necessary to close the window

If you thought I was kidding, oh, how wrong you were.

Rich, warm, and spicy - that sums it up well. It's nicely brightened by the citrus, and would do well as an aperi- or digestif, although its highest use is without a doubt as a winter warming drink.

Whether the snow actually contributed anything beyond the psychological satisfaction of having collected it by hand, I can't tell. But then, what could it possibly provide that's greater than that?

The things I used my last bottle of dark rum and the first half of that lemon for will be the subjects of future posts; Meletti will get one of its own, too, since I imagine a lot of you have never had it before. In the mean time, stay warm and dry. And don't try harvesting cocktail snow at home.

Outre-Mer

Outre-Mer

6 parts Rhum Barbancourt
1 part Kassatly Ajyal tamarind syrup
1/2 part Grand Marnier

Stir briskly to keep the syrup from settling. Serve neat.

My neighbor got his hands on some tamarind syrup, and had absolutely no idea what to do with it. “Here, Cocktail Guy,” he said, “You figure it out.” Thus was born the tamarind ingredient challenge, and consequently the Outre-Mer.

I christened it after the French name for their lingering colonial outposts (the name means, “Overseas”), because the ingredients are French, Haitian, and Lebanese. Other dark rums will also work, but there’s a rich smokiness to the Barbancourt that makes the whole combination taste more exotic.

An addition I came up with later was a single dash of Scrappy’s cardamom bitters (available here: http://scrappysbitters.com/cardamon/), which I’ve found to blend nicely with any individual spirit and more liqueurs than you’d think. This is a perfect milieu for them.

Kona Breeze

Kona Breeze

Base - Light rum, guava juice, cranberry juice
Float - Dark rum and brandy.

First post to the new blog: first cocktail from the trip to Hawaii. The Kona Breeze is a specialty of the Sea House restaurant on Maui. Of the many cocktails that go by that name, this is by far the finest. It’s seen here in front of the most wisely-designed back bar on earth.

We don’t know the proper proportions - that’s a trade secret - but we’d guess they used a 2:1 ratio of rum to brandy in the float, and about a 3:2 ratio of guava to cranberry. That should be enough to get you started.

This’ll be our primary publication vehicle going forward, but all posts here should show up automatically on facebook. Cheers!