Daiquiri Recipe
Three ingredients, one shaker, and a century of proof that simplicity wins. The Daiquiri is cold, tart, and clean, a rum sour where fresh lime does the talking and white rum supplies the backbone.
Ingredients
- 2 ozwhite rum
- 0.75 ozfresh lime juice
- 0.75 ozsimple syrup
Garnish
- Lime wheel
- Optional thin lime twist
Equipment: Shaker, jigger, fine strainer, coupe or chilled cocktail glass, citrus press
Method
- Chill your coupe in the freezer or fill it with ice water while you work.
- Add 2 oz white rum, 0.75 oz fresh lime juice, and 0.75 oz simple syrup to a shaker.
- Fill the shaker two-thirds with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds until the tin frosts.
- Double strain into the chilled coupe to catch lime pulp and ice shards.
- Garnish with a lime wheel and serve immediately.
About the Daiquiri
The Daiquiri was born in Cuba, near the iron mines and beach town of Daiquiri outside Santiago, and it spread through Havana bars before landing in American cocktail books in the early 1900s. Its logic is a classic sour ratio: spirit, citrus, sweetener. Prohibition-era drinkers embraced it because good rum and fresh lime could carry a drink without much else, and bartenders have argued about the exact proportions ever since.
To nail it, treat the lime as the star. Squeeze fresh juice, never bottled, and taste your simple syrup so you can dial sweetness up or down to match the rum. Shake harder and longer than feels necessary: dilution and aeration are part of the recipe. Use a white or lightly aged rum so the lime stays bright, and serve it cold enough that the first sip stings a little.
- Fresh lime juice is non-negotiable; bottled juice turns the drink flat and bitter.
- Shake with hard ice and strain fast so the Daiquiri stays bracing, not watery.
- For a Hemingway variation, cut the syrup to 0.5 oz and add 0.25 oz grapefruit juice.
- Chill the glass first; a warm coupe softens the drink within a minute.
Get the bottles delivered
Order online for same-day or next-day Long Island delivery, free curbside pickup in Commack, or nationwide shipping where it is legal. You must be 21 or older.
