Latest / Into The Barchive / The Daiquiri — Constante, Hemingway, and Havana’s Perfect Sour
Transcript
- ITB: Into the barkive where the past comes alive. Forgotten drinks will revive. ⁓ we thrive. Sip the tails, let them drive. Welcome to the barkive. Welcome back, Barkivist, to this week's episode of Into the Barkive for It's the podcast that we take a deep dive into the stories, the people, and the cocktails that have crafted the way that we drink. Yeah, and today's episode marks the end of the mini-series on tiki and tropical drinks. But today we're stepping outside the bamboo hut and the and into something a little more foundational. Okay. Because before there were fog cutters and navy grogs, before Frozen pina coladas on the beach, there was the daiquiri. Okay, I'm gonna let you go to the daiquiri as long as you promise me eventually we'll head back to more of that tiki flair. We will, trust me. Alright, so we're not talking about a daiquiri, not just any daiquiri, right? Yeah, I mean, i if you remember way back in episode two on the sour, we made a daiquiri. That is true. So Today we're diving into the refined, almost obsessive variations created by one of the most important bartenders in cocktail history, Constante Ribalagua Vert. One more time. Constante Ribalagua Vert. Vert. Okay Or just call him Constante. For the rest of the episode, that's all I'm going to do. Constante. Alright. Alright. Got it? I got it. Constante. So. In honor of National Dacri Day. We've got this episode. Yeah, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna break down his four famous Dacri variations. Number one all the way through number four. Buckle up Buttercup. Okay, we're making four cocktails this episode. Yep. And not only are we gonna make four different cocktails, we're going to explore the legendary bar where they were born, El Floridita. And its connection to one of the most mythologized drinkers of all time. The one, the only, Ernest Hemingway. Absolutely. Okay. So ⁓ before we get into the numbered variation, let's go ahead and ground ourselves. Okay. If we remember at its core, the daiquiri is one of the simplest cocktails in existence. We've got three ingredients. We've got our spirit. We've got lime or Sour. And we got sugar. Yep. That's it. Yep. Rum lime sugar. From there, we've got nothing else. It's very clean. It's very direct. It's very intentional. Yes. So little changes in ingredients can go a long way. Alright, so how did this become four different cocktails then? No room to hide anything. Well, it's because Constante was so ⁓ focused on making different cocktails. Like he it was almost like a discipline to him. Like every day he wanted to invent a new drink. Okay, so he is becoming very disciplined. He's going to take this singular approach. Is that what we're getting into today? Yep. We're gonna see how small changes can make big differences. And this time we're about to make ratios a reality. So we're gonna start with daiquiri number one. This is a simple daiquiri that makes one important difference than the original Jennings Cox daiquiry. So like his, we're gonna start with two ounces of a white rum. The big difference is instead of simple syrup or sugar, we're using maraschino liqueur made from marasca cherries, and we're going to use three quarters of an ounce there. So that's going to be the only sweetness in this cocktail. It's also going to give it some other fun flavors. And then to balance it out, we're going to add three quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. And then following that we will add some ice to our large tin. And then we'll shake. Once you've shaken and got a nice ⁓ frost built up on your tin, grab a chilled coop or other stemmed cocktail glass, and then we'll strain our cocktail, our daiquiri number one. into our coop. And then we'll garnish with the lime wheel. And there you have Constante's Dacquery number one. Consante's Jacqueri number two. Much like before, we're gonna start with two ounces of an aged white rum. Pretty simple after this. Half ounce of the remaining ingredients. Half ounce of our cointreau. Or triple sec or orange liqueur, whichever one you prefer. This one calls for cointreaux. Half ounce of lime juice. Half ounce of orange juice. And then adding to the sweetness, notice the triple sec or the cointrea wasn't enough. We're actually going to do one tablespoonful or teaspoonful of sugar. And on this one, it's going to be a super fine sugar. The reason that we're using that in this cocktail is when you shake it, it helps it break down a lot easier and faster. If not, the granulated sugar may take a little bit longer and also gives a grainier mouthfeel if it were to get into the cocktail. Your preference, you do what you want to do. From there. We're gonna ice our big tin. And this is where some people for that sugar would have potentially used a bar spoon to help shake it up. But again, because it is a super fine and I already have it broken up there, I think the way that I'm going to shake it should be enough. So no need to do that there. Shake for about 10 to 15 seconds. Break that seal, and much like Blake, make sure you grab that chilled coop from the freezer. We're gonna strain into our chill coop. And ⁓ the garnish for this cocktail could be a ⁓ the the oils from a fresh lemon, I mean fresh orange, or ⁓ what we've started doing for some of our cocktail classes is using our orange oil. One, it's a little bit more sustainable, so you're not wasting and having to potentially forget to press and use those extra oranges that you have left over that may go flabby or flatter later, which is giving a few spritz and garnish with the essence of those oils. And now we have daiquiri. Number two. Now that we built the cocktails, let's build the context. Who was Castante? Well, Constante Rubalague Verto, often simply known as Constante. Again, that's all I'm going to do because I will mess up the rest of it. So he was a Spanish-born Cuban bartender who took over the operations at El Floridita in the early 20th century. And under his leadership, El Floridita didn't just Become a bar, it became the bar in Havana, the capital of Cuba. Yeah, it was a destination. You wanted to go there. It had the best atmosphere. It had the best cocktails. It had the best ambiance, the people, it was people watching. Yeah, and part of it was Constante. I mean, he was an expert bartender. He was meticulous. I mean, obsessive even. He treated cocktails not just as recipes. but as systems to be tuned, adjusted, and perfected. And I mean, in many ways, he didn't just make daiquiries, he engineered them. He tracked dilution, ice texture, sugar ratios, lime acidity, even the aeration of shaking versus blending, and most importantly, he adapted the drinks to the guests. And that's key. We've had several conversations as we make cocktails throughout these episodes about like it's good to understand our audience or the people that are in the room that we're making cocktails for. It's like this person's gonna like this cocktail because we know they like X, Y, and Z. They're not gonna like this one because they don't like X, Y, and Z. So Consante was that. Like he did that based off of patrons that he had and was meticulous to make sure he met their palates. Yeah, and I mean this is how we end up with the number daiquiries, right? Each one is a deliberate evolution. And again, it's also part of that discipline he put himself through of like, he wanted like he treated bartending not just as a job, but as a craft. Like it's always consistently honing his craft, not coming up with some radically different invention, but just like, okay. If I change this here, that there, it creates something new. Yeah. ⁓ I mean, we're gonna get into this later on when we get into like probably daiquiri number three and and daiquiri number four. Yeah. But even with number one and number two, like I'm I'm very appreciative that you made number one. Because while I appreciate maraschino liqueur as an ingredient, three quarters of an ounce in a cocktail where it is pretty much What at least what that's one sixth, you know, a I mean it's still a hefty frickin' portion of that cocktail. It's a bully. It packs a punch. That's not my flavor profile profile. So I can imagine, like, if I'm a patron of constant, like going into that bar, he's like, No, no, no. Number two. Like, and number two speaks to me. Like it is a better cocktail for me. Where number one, I think you would enjoy it a hell of a lot more than I would. Yep. So now we've got this cocktail, this guy that's like, okay, I can make a daiquiri. I've got variations to meet your needs, her needs, their needs. And so he starts to roll all of this out at El Floridita. Right? Wal walk me through his his his venue. Well, so El Floridita is an old Havana. So this is the capital of Cuba. I mean it's it's in the center of the city and This bar has a long history that predates Constante. It had opened in the early 1800s, but it was Constante who transformed El Floridita from an important Havana bar to a global icon. Like a destination that ⁓ that people around the world went to. Okay. And so Cuba and the United States have had a long tangled history. Had and still have. Yes. Okay. And, you know, part of that is Cuba is ninety miles off the coast of Florida. Yeah, directly across. Yep. And when the United States enacted Prohibition in 1920, while some Americans went to speakeasies in the cities, or they ⁓ distilled moonshine in the mountains, others fled to other countries entirely. Like some went to Paris or London, right? So you have like Harry Craddock going to take over the American Bar at the Savoy. Yep. You have ⁓ the Harry's American Bar in Paris. Yep. ⁓ other Americans ⁓ didn't move entirely, but they would take frequent vacations, whether they were from California going back and forth across the border to Tijuana, uh-huh, or most famously. Many Floridians and people in the southern United States going back and forth to Cuba. Yeah, quickly just taking a little boat ride or maybe a quick airplane to and fro. Yeah, and what's funny is Bacardi, which of course pre Castro was a Cuban distiller. True. they would entice tourists with offers to come to Cuba and they said, Hey, we'll provide you transportation to and from the airport. And then they would show them like directly to the bar. Yep. Makes sense. And ⁓ I don't know we're gonna go too deep into these spirits just yet, but there's many of Cuban rums that had to pivot during this time frame and still to this day they can't provide their spirits to the US. They can provide them to other countries, but we're getting other dissolence typically from Puerto Rico, like Bacardi. Or Havana Club, if they're being sold in the States, they're typically distillates that are office deals from Puerto Rico instead of Cuba. Yeah, because of the ⁓ United States embargo on Cuba that dates back to the Kennedy administration, Cuban goods like Havana Club rum that's authentically made in Cuba, Cuban cigars and things like that are still not sold here in the United States. Well, we can get them while we are abroad. Bringing them back is still illegal. Or questionable. We do not recommend, and if you do, you do of your own accord. So by the 1930s, 1940s. Yeah, so you know, because of all this traffic in and out of Cuba during prohibition, El Floridita has become known as La Cuna del Dacari, the cradle of the Dacquiri. Okay. Because of the work of Constante. He's like, I've got 17,000 different types of daiquiries that's gonna fit your need. And so i if you need your cr ⁓ your dacquery fix, come to me. The cradle of dairi, got it. And then of course there was Ernest Hemingway. Okay. We most most cocktail enthusiasts know of the Hemingway Dacri, so ⁓ that will be a cocktail. Yeah. Right? Okay. And And so what we need to understand is Ernest Hemingway, the famous American author, spent a lot of time in Cuba during Prohibition. In fact, he was a regular at El Floradita. Not just a casual guest. I mean, he was a regular had his own spot at the bar, his name there. Like if you sat in a seat, th they were like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Ernest will be here in a minute. Get the hell off. Kind of Okay, yeah. And He had his own preferred daiquiri speck known as the papa doble. Papa Doble. Okay. And so it was less sugar, more rum. But this is because he was a diabetic, correct? Quote unquote, or is that the story is ⁓ he wanted a drink that was drier, more rum, and so like daiquiri number three that we know is the Hemingway daiquiri, ⁓ was built for him. So It dialed back on the sugar and then added grapefruit, which added some bitterness to the cocktail. ⁓ and then Hemingway's preferred version was the double of it. So double the rum. And but it kept the maraschino about the same. So it was just a much boozier version of daiquiri number three. Again, a papa double, as in two. Yeah, double, right? ⁓ and Constante being the a hospitable host of course would always adjust to Hemingway. And in fact, there was a famous line attributed to Hemingway. He said, My mojita is in ⁓ Lebodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floradita. And whether he actually said that or not doesn't matter. The legend stuck, and even today. There is a statue of Ernest Hemingway at the end of the bar at Loaf at El Floridita. And oftentimes patrons will buy a drink and set it in front of the statue in his honor. Well, much like we did for the fo first two cocktail, I guess we need to turn those ratios into reality. Yep, let's let's make a Hemingway daiquiri. Now let's make daiquiri number three, also known as the Hemingway daiquiri. So we'll start with our two ounces of our white rum. And so again, in recognition of Hemingway being a diabetic, the only sugar in this drink is maraschino liqueur. And there's a part of me that thinks like Hemingway just didn't want to admit there was ⁓ sugar in the liqueur. He's like, ⁓ more booze. That's okay. There's no sugar in that. So half ounce of maraschino liqueur. Then we're gonna take a half ounce of pink grapefruit juice or a ruby grapefruit juice. And this is gonna add a little bitterness to the cocktail. And then finally, we're gonna add three quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. From there, we'll put ice in our tin and then we'll get ready to shake. And then we'll grab a coop from our freezer so it's nice and chilled. And then we'll strain into the coup. And then in what I can only imagine is another act of Hemingway's denialism, there's a marashino cherry as the garnish. No sugar there. Cheers. Constante's daiquiri number four, or the frozen daiquiri. In our ⁓ blending ⁓ vessel, we're going to put two ounces of rum. With a quarter ounce of maraschino liqueur. Three quarters of an ounce of fresh lime juice. And then a half ounce of simple syrup. One to one ratio of water to sugar. If you haven't watched an episode before, a little technique for when we blend cocktails, what we're going to do is take the vessel that we plan on using. To help measure how much ice we need. And what we're gonna do is now we're going to fill that up with pebble ice. And make sure that you give a generous heap on this one. If it overflows, okay, it's perfectly fine. And then we're gonna dump it into our vessel. We got a little extra. Put our coop there and now add our blade, twist. And now blend. Give that about a 10 second go. Yours may vary. You'll listen to the ice to hear if that pebble ice starts to break up. But now, take your lid off. Give it a little tappy-poo. Pour into your chilled coop. And now no garnish, but we do finish with a straw. This is Consante's Dacri number four. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context part two. Let's actually compare these cocktails. I know we've now have two different ones and not the first two that we started with, but Dacri number one, right? Dacri number one has this dryness from the Luxardo Maraschino liqueur. Yeah. The sweetness is pretty much coming from that. ⁓ like I like. Personally again, I think it's a bully in that, but that cocktail isn't made for me. It's made for somebody else in mind. Yeah, I ⁓ I think daiquiri number one has a lot of bright acidity, ⁓ but unlike the traditional daiquiri where it's just lime, ⁓ rum, simple syrup, the maraschino adds a little more complexity and almost a floral note with some of the aromatics from the maraschino liqueur. And I'm gonna say that's spot on because that's daiquy number four. Now daiquiri number four did take some liberty of using pebble ice to try to blend it. It's not a true frozen, so let me go back to that. It's truly not a frozen cocktail in that sense because there's a lot of liquid to a very small vessel. And so it doesn't allow enough ice to be blended to truly make it a What we've considered a frozen, like a frozen margarita, frozen d'Acri itself. It's more of a a playful, chunky iceberg, slushy, if you will. Right. And and I mean, I think maybe kind of skipping over two and three for a moment, because one and four are most similar. Yeah. It it's frapped. ⁓ I like the idea of it's almost like a daiquiri slushy. Yeah. Than it is a frozen daiquiri. But that's where you said the first one definitely takes the s the cimple syrup out of it completely. Right. And to me, I'm missing that extra sweetness and the fact that it amps up that Luxardo so much. It's only a quarter ounce in daiquiri number four. It's a quarter ounce of that Luxardo, which again, I'm not opposed to that flavor. I'm opposed for it being the prominen flavor. So Again, it's still that quarter ounce is holding up. It's giving a nice mouthful. The simple soap is add adding this viscosity to it, but still keeping that fun, play you know, playful, original daiquiri of lime, rum, and then the simple with a little bit of extra spice. It's like adding some pep, right? That lixardo's just a little bit of dash in there just to bring it some extra oomph. Well, and the addition of the simple syrup. helps with the blending because anytime you're trying to do a blender cocktail, you need a little more sugar for the sake of consistency. That's true. Okay. So we kind of did a comparison of one and four because they're pretty close with a moderation of spec. Well I before we move on, just one other last note I thought of on four is like the fairy number four, constante, if you think about He's working in Havana, Cuba. Yep. Right? So it's pretty hot there most of the year. So think about like how refreshing that cocktail would be. This so they're both served in coal in coops. Let's say they're both chilled coops. They come out. 15 minutes out on a regular day. Yours compared to mine 15 minutes, I have ice in mind. Yours is not. It is going to warm up. And it is going to be a different mouth and flavor profile before mine. Like mine may have a little bit more dilution coming in, but it's still gonna be more chilled and pleasant to me. 15 minutes into this, where yours has potentially evolved well past what it's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, and like the other kind of like note of historical significance here is like Constante was like, if not the very first. One of the first bartenders to use the electric blender. He's doing this in the 1920s, 1930s. So I mean, this in many ways is an innovation in the world of cocktails. So I mean, there is a little bit of flair, showmanship. Hey, I've got a blender. Ha ha ha ha ha. Like look in this toy. Again, if somebody hears or sees this thing, they're probably more aware to actually order the thing and so therefore they're going to order that thing. There's the whole fajita thing. Yeah, you know, a scenario I use in a previous like it walks through the store. You're like, one you smell it, two, you hear it. And then once you see the steam coming off of you're like, damn, I've got to order. And guess what you order? You order the vahivas. Like it's there. I'm going in for a mocha hete. Well I'm still probably ordering mocha jete pretty close, but yeah. That's a me thing, not a you. Yeah. All right. Dacqueries two and three though. Here we go. Both of these now are using similar kind of ingredients again, right? Well, I mean, they both diverge more from the run lime sugar template than one and four do. They diverge in different ways. Yeah, they they go into sorry, they go into the citrus playfulness, right? Like Hemingway is definitely I'm going bitter boozy, so grapefruit bitter. type thing, but the other one is doing the lime and orange to bring this extra citrus play. And so creative liberty is there because again not everyone wants a ⁓ a a sweet cocktail they may want a bitter ⁓ a savory a tart yeah approach well and like on i mean we'll start with number three the Hemingway dairy and This definitely is not a beginner. No. It's it's got some layers to it. It's a little bitter. It's not sweet. It's strong. It is boozy and tart. And this is again Constante knowing the palettes of his patrons. And in this case, the palette of one particular person. Parent is Stimmingway. Yep. So who wanted it strong and tart and not sweet? Like Or Hemingway was a straightforward, like no frills. I I want what I want and I want it big. Yep. But then Daicri number three, or sorry, two, is the opposite. It it that orange juice lends itself to be a little bit more approachable because a regular daiquiri in itself could be, some may consider it, too tart with lime, right? The orange juice has this balance aroundness of a a robustness to the mouth and it's more I would say more comforting and level setting, right? Yeah, well, I think the daiquiri number two sharpens the or softens the sharp edges. I mean if we think about this like orange juice is something we can drink straight up. A lot of people are not drinking lime juice or lemon juice. It's far too sour. Yep. But I think what makes daiquiri number two work is that it's bringing the orange flavor from multiple directions. Because if you just added a half ounce of orange juice into that cocktail, it would probably suck and be flabby. But you add orange flavor through the orange juice, the cointreau or orange liqueur, and then the expression of the orange oil as the garnish. So you're getting it from three different directions. Playing again on layers are just different forms of orange. Yeah. And what's funny is Dacri number two is almost more like a rum sidecar. I agree with that. I in my mind I'm like, when I approach that, I think it is a a a rift off of what I consider the classic sidecar. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No doubt. Easy. There is no right or wrong answer between Dairy One or four or hell, any of the other daiquiries that he would have come up with at the at the restaurant or hotel. ⁓ the right approach is choosing the right one for you in the moment that you are in. Period, point blank, full stop. Yeah. And and just kind of as a quick aside, I just ⁓ ate the cherry in my cocktail. It changes the cocktail though. Yeah. is like it add it added that burst of sweetness having that other sip of the cocktail after eating the cherry I'm like ⁓ my god that's a great new experience because I've had Hemingway dacri sometimes instead of a cherry they have ⁓ lime wheels on them instead but that was an interesting transformation shows the power of the garnish. Yeah it's intentional there because ⁓ you can almost imagine yourself Hemingway is drinking half the cocktail to begin with. He then eats the cherry. Hell, even eats half the cherry, finishes the cocktail, right? He's i enhancing that is experience as he's going along. You make the the joke about the whole, you know, embracing the diabetic piece and then because the Luxardo cherries don't have yeah, but that could truly be it was like, hey, he's trying to moderate. He's doing his best way of moderating his sugar intake and that was the way that he could do it. I mean, most of us aren't trying to hit diets or something like that. You have to do it in moderation. You can't go full bore because you may fail. And that could have been his approach. Hell, we don't know. But you proved an example right there just in your tasting of it, right? Yeah. Okay. So the legacy of these daiquiries, can we go into that? Sure. I mean, the daiquiri doesn't stay in Cuba. Not at all. It spreads through travelers, bartenders, American cocktail culture. In fact, during his presidency, John F. Kennedy named the daiquiry as his favorite drink. Ironic given all the issues in US-Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration, like the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. We will not go into any further. Let's go back to cocktails. Sorry. PhD in American foreign policy history, what can I say? So what Constantine created wasn't just a drink though, right? Yeah. It it was so much more than that. But even though the Dacri began to spread, something did get lost along the way. And what was that? Well, what a Dacri was, in a sense, is that although Constante transformed the Dacri by bringing the electric blender into the equation and Taking into something new, the daiquiri soon becomes bastardized with you you can wear I know, I know where you're going. We're going artificial flavor. So we're going like bananas and strawberries and raspberries and all the different high like these these colors that also bringing sugar from high fructose craw corn syrup, which you've talked about before. But these these artificial colors, neon. Bright, usually trying to grab the appeal, still trying to be sexy, but in a very bastardized way. Now it takes away the fact of what this drink was supposed to be. It's now it's trying to be sexy artificially, almost like a horror on the street, instead of a warniful lady of the night that you want to take home and introduce to your mother. All right. Right? That's a cocktail you want to take home to your mother. I don't want to take. Weird red strawberry frozen daiquiri that's been slushed up in a machine by 30 different people. And then yeah, right? Bad analogy, but it makes sense. Like you don't want that, or some people do, and that's their thing. And if that's your thing, you go do you boo-boo. Well, I I was gonna say I I think the daiquiry a lot of people have forgotten its historic Cuban origins. And think of it more in like the New Orleans sense of the daiquir shop where lots of the slushy machines lined up on the wall. And like a wet willies type scenario. Nothing against wet willies, great establishments. But the those sort of establishments where it's slushy machines on the wall, and but perhaps none of those daiquiries have seen any wrong. It's just Ever clear Yeah, high proof spirits that now have artificial flavors and coloration. Yep. So ⁓ I think we we have to rem this episode gives us a chance to remember the origin of the Dacri because what Constante created wasn't just a drink, it was a framework. Okay. So he as we have f talked about now through these four cocktails and others, studied precision. Right. It was a study in precision. A reminder that even the simplest cocktail could be endlessly, I mean endlessly refined. Yeah, and today as modern bartenders revisit classic techniques, we see a return to that mindset. Balance, fresh ingredients, intentional variation, and in many ways, we're all still chasing constante. So This National Dacquery Day, whether you're shaking classic number one or blending up my number four, take a moment to appreciate the lineage in your glass. This is more than a cocktail. It's evolution in real time. As always, we ask that you please like and subscribe to any of our ⁓ viewing avenues, whether it be on YouTube, whether it be on Instagram or TikTok. Or following us on one of our podcasts on Apple or Spotify, please interact with us. Happy to communicate with many of you so far. Thank you for those feedbacks. Some some humorous, some very serious, and we're taking all of those into consideration. Keep those coming. Yeah, next episode, we're going to shift gears for National Tequila Day. Okay. Yeah, so we're gonna dive into agave history and a spirit with just as much. depth and identity as well. So until next time, keep exploring the past, one drink at a time as we dive deeper into the barkive. Cheers.