Daiquiri

Ingredients:
2 oz rum
1/2 lime juice
1 tsp castor sugar




Preparation:

Mix in shaker filled with ice cubes. Strain into glass and serve.

History:

The name Daiquirí is also the name of a beach near Santiago, Cuba, and an iron mine in that area, and it is a word of Taíno origin. The cocktail was invented about 1905 in a bar named Venus in Santiago, about 23 miles east of the mine, by a group of American mining engineers. Among the engineers present were Jennings Cox, General Manager of the Spanish American Iron Co., J. Francis Linthicum, C. Manning Combs, George W. Pfeiffer, De Berneire Whitaker, C. Merritt Holmes and Proctor O. Persing. Although stories persist that that Cox invented the drink when he ran out of gin while entertaining American guests, the drink evolved naturally due to the prevalence of lime and sugar.

Originally the drink was served in a tall glass packed with cracked ice. A teaspoon of sugar was poured over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of rum completed the mixture. The glass was then frosted by stirring with a long-handled spoon. Later the Daiquiri evolved to be mixed in a shaker with the same ingredients but with shaved ice. After a thorough shaking, it was poured into a chilled flute glass. An article in the March 14, 1937 edition of the Miami Herald as well as private correspondence of J.F. Linthicum confirm the recipe and early history.

Consumption of the drink remained localized until 1909, when Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a U.S. Navy medical officer, tried Cox's drink. Johnson subsequently introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., and drinkers of the daiquiri increased over the space of a few decades. The daiquiri was one of the favorite drinks of writer Ernest Hemingway and president John F. Kennedy.

The drink became incredibly popular in the 1940s. Wartime rationing made whiskey, vodka, etc, hard to come by, yet because of Roosevelt's 'Good Neighbor Policy' (which opened up trade and travel relations with Latin America, Cuba and the Caribbean), rum became highly attainable. The Good Neighbor Policy (also known as 'The Pan-American program'), helped make Latin America seem hip, hot and fashionable. As a consequence, rum-based drinks (once frowned upon as being the domain of sailors and down-and-outs), also became fashionable, and the Daiquiri saw a tremendous rise in popularity in the US.

Source:
Wikipedia