9. The Daiquiri: The Corrrre; it be Rum!

Online School of Cocktailory

For drinking #alonetogether

Section 103: The Daiquiri (and other sours)

Here we have another cocktail that gets a bad rap from all the blended buckets and punch bowls of over-sweetened imposters. But a sour is just a spirit, citrus, and sweetener shaken together where the sweet & sour combo tempers the alcohol.

Rum’s history begins in colonial times in the Caribbean where the islands were prized for agricultural resources, particularly sugarcane. Once the sugar was refined and shipped off, the locals were left with the unglamorous industrial by-product of molasses. Since molasses ferments easily, and the islands and territories were controlled by various European nations, different distilling trading were used on the islands and overseas to produce a very wide range of British rums, French rhums, and Spanish rons.

Spanish rum or ron is column distilled, high proof and heavily filtered to remove most of the molasses flavor. This is the most popular style you’ll see around. British rum is similar, but tends to be richer and have some funkiness from blending different distilling processes. Jamaican rum is always made in pot stills, making it rich with a strong grassy, gasoline, barrel, or banana smell. It’s rarely used as the sole base spirit because of the strong funky flavors. French rhum has a divided history during the Napoleonic Wars where a British blockade halted French imports of sugar from the French Caribbean colonies. France began processing beets to create a sugarcane-like crystal at home, while the French colonies’ economy was devastated by sudden lack of demand for their exports. The excess of sugarcane was juiced to make a rhum agricole, usually distilled twice in copper pot stills, with a bright raw fruit and vegetal tang.

Cachaça, a Brazilian rhum relative, is similar to rhum agricole, but the sugarcane juice is only distilled once, so the proof is lower and the liquor is more rich and pungent. Aged Cachaça can have a cinnamon vanilla flavor described like liquid french toast.

All rums can come in light, medium, gold, barrel-aged, dark, black, and/or full-bodied.

Our homework this week is to compare 3 daiquiris by varying the rums, so best to find a drinking buddy for this one. For each recipe you’ll want to shake it with ice and strain into a small chilled glass like a coupe.

-Light Rum Daiquiri-

2 oz. typical Spanish style white rum

1 oz. lime juice

3/4 oz. simple syrup

-Funky Rum Daiquiri-

2 oz. French rhum agricole, like La Favorite Cour de Canne rhum agricole blanc

1 oz. lime juice

3/4 oz. simple syrup

-Aged Rum Daiquiri-

2 oz. Jamaican rum, like Appleton Estate

1 oz. lime juice

3/4 oz. simple syrup

(Recipes from pg. 113 of the Cocktail Codex)

Comment below if you find any new rums you love or if anyone finds a decent Brazilian cachaça. Enjoy, and see you next week!