Page 271 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

WHERE T O EA T AND DRINK  269

Cuban Cocktails

Cuba has been famous for its rum since the 1500s, although the rum the pirates loved
so much was not the same as today’s, but a bitter and highly alcoholic drink, at times
sweetened with sugar and hierba buena, a variety of mint common in Latin America.
This explosive mixture, jokingly called draguecito or “little dragon”, is probably the
ancestor of the mojito, one of the most famous Cuban cocktails. In the early 1900s a
Cuban engineer named Pagluchi and his American colleague Cox, while making an
inspection near Santiago, mixed rum with sugar and lemon, and named the drink
after the place they were in, Daiquirí. In the 1920s, during American Prohibition, Cuba,
which had become an “off limits” paradise for drinkers, developed and refined these
early cocktails and went on to create others. In parallel, the role of the professional
barman (cantinero) acquired increasing importance.

Daiquirí frappé is Mojito comes in a highball glass.
served in a chilled White cane sugar is mixed
cocktail glass. White with lime juice and a crushed
rum is placed in an electric stem of mint. To this is added
blender and mixed with white rum, and the
one teaspoon of sugar, five glass is then filled
drops of maraschino, lime juice with sparkling
and crushed ice. Hemingway mineral water and
liked to drink this cocktail chopped ice and the
at El Floridita (see p270). drink is stirred. The
“temple” of the mojito
is La Bodeguita del
Medio (see p270).
Cuba Libre is
made from rum
and cola mixed
with ice and lime
juice. The drink was
supposedly invented Havana Especial is
by US soldiers who took made with pineapple juice,
part in the Cuban wars silver dry rum, a dash of
of independence (1898). maraschino and crushed
The name, Free Cuba, ice, mixed and served in a
comes from the tall, slim glass. This cocktail
nationalists’ motto. has a very delicate flavour.

The Cantineros‘ Club
This club for professional barmen
(cantineros) was founded in Havana
in 1924 and sponsored by a
group of Cuban distilleries and
breweries. By the early 1930s the
club had a central office on the
Prado. The club’s aims remain
unchanged today: defence of
the interests of its members,
professional training for young Canchánchara is
people (who are required to learn made by the bar of
the recipes for at least 100 cocktails), the same name in
and English lessons. The club also Trinidad (see p186)
currently promotes the Havana The Bodeguita del Medio barman with rum, lime, honey
Club International Grand Prix. with a mojito and water. It is served
in an earthenware cup.

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