It was a hot day in Santigo, Cuba in 1905. A group of American mining engineers, who worked at the nearby Daiquiri iron mine were gathered at a bar named Venus. It was there that the Daiquiri cocktail was first concocted by Jennings Cox, who was the General Manager of the Spanish American Iron Company in Cuba.
The drink was probably named after the Daiquiri mine, where the men worked, but its name could have also been influenced by a nearby beach of the same name. The idea for the drink was a natural occurrence because of the plentiful availability of limes, cane sugar and rum in Cuba.
The Daiquiri’s history was reported in the March 14, 1937 edition of the Miami Herald and was further confirmed by the private correspondence of J.F. Linthicum, who was one of the mining engineers present when the drink was created.
Similar to another popular Cuban drink, Mojitos, Daiquiris were mixed in a tall glass packed with cracked ice and frosted by rapid stirring with a long-handled spoon. Daiquiri’s were eventually mixed in shakers filled with shaved ice.
The Daiquiri’s gained popularity in the U.S., after it was introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC by Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a U.S. Navy medical officer, who had been offered the drink when he visited Cox.
It
should be noted that Daiquiris were favorite drinks of both writer Ernest
Hemingway and President John F. Kennedy.
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