[2] A different citrus take: the Grapefruit Daiquirí, substituting grapefruit purée and juice for the lime juice (photo © Ruth’s Chris Steak House).

[3] A Hawthorne strainer. This one is from Williams Sonoma.

[4] Flavor a classic Daiquiri with coconut- or pineapple-flavored rum (photo © Copalli Rum).

[5] Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer who invented the Daiquirí (photo: Public Domain).

[6] Bartender Constantino Ribalaigua y Vert, who created the three variations of the Daiquirí at El Floridita in Havana (photo: Public Domain).

Updated July 2026

July 19th is National Daiquirí Day, well known as one of the favorite drinks of writer Ernest Hemingway, and less well known as a favorite of President John F. Kennedy (Jackie trained the White House staff to make them).

A Daiquirí (pronounced DAK-uh-ree in English, but die-kee-REE in the native Taíno language) is a combination of rum, lime juice, and sugar or another sweetener (we use agave nectar).

PARTY IDEA: Next year on July 19th, consider hosting a National Daiquirí Day party with pitchers of all four recipes!

Below:

> The history of the Daiquirí.

> Original Daiquirí recipe.

> No. 2 Daiquirí recipe: Orange Daiquirí.

> No. 3 Daiquirí recipe: The Hemingway.

> No. 4 Daiquirí recipe: The sweeter Hemingway.

> Blood Orange Daiquirí recipe.
 
Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The year’s 100+ cocktail and spirit holidays.

> The year’s 15 rum holidays.
 
 
DAIQUIRÍ HISTORY

The cocktail was invented in 1898 at the El Floridita bar in the tropical heat of the Cuban mining town of Daiquirí, near Santiago, Cuba, home of an iron mine.

While one version has Jennings Cox (photo #5), an American mining engineer working at the mine, had a bartender shake Bacardi rum, sugar, and lime with ice, a different story has emerged:

That Cox mixed the very first Daiquirí (which he originally thought of as a “Rum Sour”) in his own home or the mining company’s executive quarters to entertain guests.

A tall glass (Collins glass) was filled with cracked ice; a teaspoon of sugar was sprinkled over the ice, and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of white rum were added, and the mixture was stirred with a long-handled spoon. (Later versions used a shaker and other proportions.) 
 
It’s A Hit!

The group of mining engineers declared it a hit. The first actual bar to serve the drink was the Venus Bar in the nearby city of Santiago de Cuba. Cox and his fellow mining engineers used to gather there every morning, and they ultimately decided to name the cocktail after the town where they worked [source: Difford’s Guide].

The recipe eventually traveled across the island to Havana, where top bartenders began shaking it up.

In the 1910s and 1920s, a legendary bartender named Constantino Ribalaigua Vert (photo #6) at El Floridita in Old Havana (a hangout of Ernest Hemingway’s) added the ingredients with shaved ice to a blender and created the frozen Daiquirí, making the drink world-famous.

This earned the bar earned the nickname “La Cuna del Daiquirí” (The Cradle of the Daiquirí), which created the confusion that the drink was invented there [source: Bacardi].

It is also possible that William Astor Chanler, Sr., a U.S. congressman who purchased the Santiago Iron Mines in 1902, brought the recipe back from Cuba and introduced the Daiquirí to private clubs in New York at that time.

In 1909, Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, then a young U.S. Navy medical officer, visited Cuba and was introduced to the drink directly by its inventor, Jennings Cox.

Johnson loved it so much that he brought a barrel of Cuban rum and the recipe back to Washington, D.C., introducing it to the bartenders at the Army and Navy Club on Farragut Square that same year [source].
 
It Becomes An American Classic

The Daiquirí is one of the six classic cocktails highlighted in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, first published in 1948 and still in print (here’s the 2008 edition). The others included:

 
PARTY IDEA: Host an American Classics cocktail party. If your friends want to pitch in, assign them to make a quart of one of the recipes. National Cocktail Day is March 24th.

The Daiquirí Evolves

As with just about any recipe, many variations of the Daiquirí have proliferated.

After the recipe traveled from the town of Daiquirí to Havana, Constantino Ribailagua, a bartender at El Floridita bar and restaurant in Old Havana, created three variations.

Easy variations:

 
The Daiquirí is the basis for all Tiki drinks (Mai Tai, Planter’s Punch, Scorpion, etc.).

We received these recipes from Bacardi. We’d expected Bacardi to be the #1 rum in the world, but that position is held by a brand we’d never heard of. Based on global sales volume, the Top 5 rum brands in the world are:

See photo #1 and photo #8 below. Preparation requires a cocktail shaker and a strainer.

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. ADD the sugar and lime juice to a cocktail shaker and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

2. ADD the rum and fill the shaker with ice: half of ice cubes, topped with half of crushed ice. Shake vigorously until thoroughly chilled; strain into a chilled coupe cocktail glass (photo #8).
 
 
RECIPE: NO. 2 DAIQUIRÍ: ADD SOME ORANGE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients except zest in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes and crushed ice. Give it all a good, hard shake until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. STRAIN the mixture into a chilled glass. Garnish with orange zest.

See photo #8 below.
 

[8] The four classic Daiquirís: Original, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 (photo © The Nibble).
 
 
NO. 3 DAIQUIRÍ RECIPE: THE HEMINGWAY

This variation on the classic Daiquirí is often referred to as the Hemingway Daiquirí (to us it seems pretty fancy for such a straightforward guy). Serve it in a rocks glass. See photo #8 above.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the first five ingredients and shake vigorously with ice cubes, until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. STRAIN into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish and serve.
 
 
NO. 4 DAIQUIRÍ RECIPE: MORE MARASCHINO

Ribailagua tweaked the No. 3 Daiquirí, the Hemingway, to achieve subtle variations: a more perfumed aroma and a slightly sweeter profile. See photo #8 above.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes and crushed ice. Shake vigorously until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. DOUBLE STRAIN the mix into a chilled glass by passing it through a hawthorne strainer (bar strainer) and then through a tea strainer. If you don’t have a hawthorne strainer you can just pass it once through a tea strainer. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.
 
How to celebrate National Daiquirí Day? Try all four—split with a friend, of course.
 

[9] While the Daiquirí’s inventor thought of it as a “rum sour,” you can adapt it to your favorite fruits. The recipe from Goslings: 1-½ Goslings Black Seal Rum, 1 ounce fresh lime juice, 2 ounces Monin blood orange syrup, 1/2 ounce dry Curacao, 3 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters, blood orange slice or a lime wheel for garnish. Combine in a shaker with ice, shake, and strain over fresh ice in an Old-Fashioned glass or up in a Martini glass (photo © Goslings Rum).
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

To a bed of frisée, the chef adds:

 
This recipe also includes a bundle of asparagus, creating a heartier salad course or vegetarian entrée.

But the “big idea” ingredient is the poached egg. The humble breakfast food; when paired with other ingredients, adds a unique glamor.

The smooth texture of the poached egg white contrasts nicely with the rough salad ingredients; the broken yoke adds a silky sauce on top of the delicious truffle vinaigrette. (For this reason, go lightly when you toss the frisée with the vinaigrette.)

1. FILL a large, deep saucepan with 2 inches of water. Add 1 tablespoon vinegar; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium.

2. BREAK 1 egg into small dish. Carefully slide the egg into the simmering water (bubbles should begin to break the surface of the water). Repeat with the remaining eggs. Poach the eggs for 3 to 5 minutes or until the whites are completely set and the yolks begin to thicken.

3. CAREFULLY REMOVE the eggs with slotted spoon. Drain on paper towels.

If you’re not adept at poaching eggs, try these egg poaching pods. The uniform roundness they create isn’t as attractive as a naturally-poached egg, but it beats the frustration of trying to harness meandering egg whites.

 
ASSEMBLE THE SALAD

1. COOK the lardons; set aside. You’ll note in the photo above that the lardons are cut in large slices. You can cut them into smaller cubes, into julienne strips, or however you like. Plan for two or three lardons per plate.

2. CUT the prosciutto as needed into smaller strips. If you cut a slice in half lengthwise, try rolling it into a “rose” or similar shape for aesthetic effect. One “rose” per plate is sufficient.

3. TOSS the frisée with vinaigrette (you can first warm the vinaigrette in the microwave for 10 seconds) and distribute among individual salad plates. Top with the pork belly and prosciutto.

4. NESTLE the poached egg atop the greens. Top with shaved grana padano and scatter the croutons. Serve with a pepper mill for fresh-ground pepper.

It’s a favorite of ours! Here are more ideas for frisée salad.

But there’s more!

 
POACHED EGG & GRILLED VEGGIES

We “poached” this idea from the Facebook page of The Guilded Nut, which specializes in flavored pistachio nuts (Garlic, Habanero, Mediterranean Herb, Sea Salt & Pepper).

Here, a poached egg is surrounded by grilled scallions and garnished with chopped pistachios.

You can use any grilled vegetables, including leftovers. Heat them in a skillet or in the microwave and serve them with the egg(s). Grated Grana Padano or Parmesan works well here, too.

We love iced tea. Most of it we brew from really fine tea leaves, so flavorful that we don’t even add sugar.

You can eliminate the sugar from this home-brewed blackberry iced tea recipe, and allow people to select their own level of sweetness and their sweetener of choice: agave, honey, noncaloric sweetener, sugar or nothing at all.

If you have a windfall of blackberries, you can make blackberry ice cubes to serve with the drink. Fill ice cube trays with water as usual, and drop a blackberry and a mint leaf into each section.

You can make the recipe caffeine-free with herbal mint tea bags. You can also use the blackberry purée in lemonade.

Prep time for the blackberry iced tea is 15 minutes plus chilling. The recipe is courtesy of Driscoll’s, the country’s leading berry distributor.

Ingredients For 2 Quarts (About 8 Servings)

 
Preparation

1. PLACE tea bags and mint in a heat-proof pitcher. Add boiling water. Steep at least 10 minutes.

2. STRAIN into another pitcher and discard the mint and tea bags. Stir in sugar.

3. PURÉE the blackberries in a blender or food processor; strain through a fine sieve. Discard pulp and seeds. Stir the blackberry purée into the tea. Taste and adjust sugar as desired. Chill.

4. SERVE over ice garnished with a mint leaf and 2 blackberries (use cocktail picks if you have them).

Figs are a “locavore” food: The fresh-picked fruit neither keeps well nor transports well. That’s why most figs on the market are dried, and you should enjoy the fresh ones while you can.

There is nothing more special than a sweet, tree-ripened fig. Different species have skins that range from dark brown to green to purple. The brown turkey fig has it all: a beautiful purple brown color with a green collar surrounding the stem. The flesh is amber color with a mild flavor.

The brown turkey fig (Ficus carica)* is an all-purpose fig, delicious fresh and in preserves and other recipes (see recipe ideas below).

Brown Turkey figs were first cultivated in Provence, France, bread from earlier varieties. Today, they grow best in Southern California.
Ripe figs yield to the touch. You can ripen them at room temperature.

If you have too many ripe figs, you can place them on paper towels, covered with plastic and refrigerate them for a few days. Or, place them in a freezer bag and freeze for up to six months.

Or, purée the ripe figs and use the purée in cocktails (mixed with white spirits, for example), smoothies, or as a topper for ice cream or sorbet (add sweetener if necessary).
 
HISTORY OF THE FIG

Figs have been a food source for man for more than 11,000 years. They were first cultivated in ancient Egypt, though they are believed to be indigenous to Western Asia.

The fig is one of man’s first cultivated crops—perhaps the first. Archaeological evidence finds that the fig predates the domestication of barley, legumes, rye and wheat, and thus may be the first example of agriculture. In fact, archaeologists propose that the fig may have been cultivated 1,000 years before the next crops—rye and wheat—were domesticated [source].

The fig is a member of the Moraceae binomial family, sometimes called the fig family. Other members include the banyan, breadfruit and mulberry. There are almost 200 cultivars of figs, in a wide range of shapes, colors and textures.

Figs are among the richest plant sources of calcium and fiber. They are rich in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and vitamins B6 and K and are a good source of antioxidants, including flavonoids and polyphenols. They are sodium-free and cholesterol/fat-free.

Today, the top 10 fig producing countries are (beginning with the largest) Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Syria, United States, Brazil, Albania and Tunisia.

Cultural trivia: The word “sycophant” comes from the Greek word sykophantes, meaning “one who shows the fig.” “Showing the fig” was a vulgar hand gesture.

Don’t peel the figs. Enjoy them with breakfast cereal, yogurt or cottage cheese; sliced on sandwiches with fresh or aged cheese; chopped and added to rice; stuffed with cream cheese or goat cheese as an hors d’oeuvre; or raw or grilled as a side dish, cut in half and served with grilled meat or poultry.

Here are a few recipes from THE NIBBLE’s collection:

Cocktails

 
Appetizers & First Courses

 
Main Courses

 
Dessert

Yesterday we presented the first five of the world’s 10 spice blends you should know: adobo from Mexico, chili powder from Mexico, five spice from China, garam masala from India and jerk from Jamaica.

Even if you won’t be cooking with them anytime soon, you should know them: They’re popular global, popping up in fusion dishes outside their native cuisines.

The second half of the Top 10 include nori shake from Japan, pimentón from Spain, quatre épices from France, ras el hanout from Morocco and za’atar from the Middle East.
 
 
NORI SHAKE

Nori shake is made from sheets of nori seaweed (the type used to wrap sushi rolls), ground with with salt and sesame seeds. Nori is the seaweed, furi means shake. Beyond its traditional use as a rice seasoning, shake it on other grains, cooked vegetables, plain yogurt and dips.

Quatre epices, a bend of cloves, ginger, nutmeg and pepper. Photo courtesy Silk Road Spices | Canada.

 
 
PIMENTÓN MIX

Pimentón is the Spanish word for what is better known as paprika, a spice ground from dried New World chiles (Capsicum annuum). Although paprika is often associated with Hungarian cuisine, in Europe it was first used in Spanish recipes. The story has it that Christopher Columbus brought the ground chiles back to Spain at the end of his second voyage. It was served to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who found it too hot and spicy; but local monks shared it with other monasteries. It spread throughout Spain, and subsequently to Hungary and elsewhere.

Ras el hanout can be a blend of 30 or more
spices. Photo courtesy SpiceAndTea.com.

QUATRE ÉPICES

Quatre épices (kahtr-ay-PEECE) is a French spice mix that is also used in some Middle Eastern cuisines. The name literally means “four spices,” and they are cloves, ginger, nutmeg and pepper.

 
 
RAS EL HANOUT

There is no one recipe for ras el hanout: Every Moroccan spice merchant has a proprietary recipe, and the cooks who buy the spices debate who has the best version. The name translates as “top of the shop” and the mixture often includes 30 or more of a spice merchant’s best ingredients: whole spices, dried roots and leaves, ground together.

 
 
ZA’ATAR

Za’atar (also spelled zahtar) is a spice blend that is very popular in Middle Eastern cuisines, including Israeli. Za’atar is actually the word for Lebanese oregano, a member of the mint family Lamiaceaea, and known since antiquity as hyssop. The za’atar blend includes spices well-known in European cuisines, with the unique components of Lebanese oregano and sumac berries. The latter grow in the Mediterranean and parts of the Middle East. They impart a tart, fruity flavor that differentiates za’atar from other spice blends.

 
Your homework: Plan to use at least one of these blends for the first time this week.