National Daiquiri Day - July 19

I don't know who came up with the notion of National Daiquiri Day, but I'm not going to let that stop me from celebrating. The Daiquiri has a long and storied history, one that's well worth remembering.

It begins in 1898 in Cuba, with an engineer named Jennings Stockton Cox. Cox was in a small mining town named - you guessed it - Daiquiri. As the story goes, Cox was looking for a way to beat the tropical heat and humidity, and combined three local products: sugar, fresh lime juice, and Bacardi rum, which was produced in nearby Santiago.

To recreate the original Daiquiri, forget the blender. Of course there was no blender. It was only 1898, after all. The first Daiquiri was incredibly easy. Fill a tall glass with cracked ice. Add a teaspoon of sugar, and the juice of 1 or 2 fresh limes. Pour in 3 ounces of rum, and stir until frosty cold.

Although there are any number of blender drinks served today that are called Daiquiris, purists will be quick to disagree. The true Daiquiri has evolved from its early days, though, and now should be made by combining the ingredients in a shaker. Shake until icy cold, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

In its earliest years, the Daiquiri was only a local favorite. According to Salvatore Calabrese in the Complete Home Bartender's Guide, its popularity began to grow in 1909 when it was introduced at the Army and Navy Club in Washington D.C. The cocktail really took off in the 1940s, when Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy opened up trade and rum became easily available.

The Daiquiri also had its celebrity fans, including President John F. Kennedy, but probably no one is more associated with the Daiquiri than Ernest Hemingway. He favored those at La Floridita in Havana, and has been quoted as saying, "My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita." It probably didn't hurt that the bartender at El Floridita, Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, created the version now known as Papa Doble for Hemingway, who apparently drank a dozen or more at a sitting.

Papa Doble Daiquiri Recipe
from La Floridita booklet, circa 1939

2 oz. white rum
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp. maraschino liqueur
1 tsp. grapefruit juice
Mix all ingredients with shaved ice in a shaker, and shake until icy. Strain over crushed or shaved ice in a rocks glass.

Hemingway in Cuba

This July 21st, Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) would have been 111
years old, characterized by incredible dynamics and adventures that are
almost a legend.

Hemingway passed away on a Sunday, just 19 days before reaching the age of
62 in 1961. That is how he left us on a day like July 2nd in Idaho and it
was on that same month he was born but in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois.

There are those that say that his love towards Cuba was not at first
sight. His first visit took place in April of 1928 and only for a 48 hour
period on board the vessel called Anita on transit on his way to Key West
at the age of 28.

Later he would return once and once again starting 1932, when he came for
a fishing tour, one of his passions, which also included hunting in Africa
and the pursuit of bulls in Spain.

He would write about fishing. In 1933 he began his chronicles on the
island for which he felt great sympathy which he expressed until the last
days of his life.

He was in Cuba for the last time in 1960 making Cuba his official
residence for over two decades and which he dedicated almost half of the
useful years as a writer leading him to valuable awards like the Pulitzer
Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Literature Prize in 1954.

Many of his work are intimately tied to Cuba. Some of his works were
written in Havana and others because many of its characters were taken
from Cuban reality.

His relationship was so tied to the island, that his home in the Vigia
Farm in San Francisco de Paula, was turned into a museum after his death,
visited now by many national and foreign visitors.

Since then, all remains there, intact as he left it. This Caribbean
island served as a site for Hemingway to create and scene of many of his
main texts like “To be or not to be”, 1937, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”,
1940, “The Old Man and the Sea”, 1952 and “Islands in the Gulf”, edited
post mortem.

“I always had good luck writing in Cuba”, said Hemingway, whose first
visit took him to live in the Ambos Mundos Hotel, in Old Havana which is a
great place to write, according to Hemingway himself and later the Vigia
Farm on the outskirts of the Cuban capital.

Once established in Cuba, he frequently visited the bar/restaurant El
Floridita, where he enjoyed Cuban cocktails. In a wooden bar he would
read the daily newspaper and enjoy a Daiquiri.

Now, exactly where he used to sit, a lifelike statue dedicated to the
renowned US writer is found.

His visits also took him to Cojimar, whose the La Terraza restaurant
became popular due to his frequent visits. There, he met Anselmo, his
Santiago in the book “The Old Man and the Sea”, and of course was almost
forever alongside his friend Gregorio Fuentes.

This coastal town, east of Havana, was mentioned a number of times in his
works as a writer and journalist and there is a plaza with a bust
dedicated to him.

Still today it is not difficult to imagine him walking the avenues
together with his inseparable Gregorio.

Despite later biographies which do not hghlight the issue, there is not a
doubt that Hemingway’s passage through Cuba was not short lived, but
unforgettable.

Why don´t Americans travel to Cuba?

By Roberto Pérez Betancourt

The government of the United States maintains in force an anti-constitutional ban that prevents its citizens from traveling to Cuba.

The measure was implemented 49 years ago and it is rejected by the majority of the American people.

After breaking diplomatic and consular relationships with Cuba in early January 1961, a prelude to different kinds of attacks against the newly-born Cuban Revolution, on the 17th of that month, John F. Kennedy’s administration eliminated the US citizens’ right to travel to the Island without any reasons whatsoever.

The roots of this hostile policy did not emerge, like some people wrongly think, after January of 1959 when the Cuban Revolution passed laws that were of great benefit to the people in virtue of the recently won political sovereignty and that pursued to consolidate the country’s economic independence.

As far back as the American War of Independence, their hegemonic ambition to take over Cuba was exposed when leaders of the Thirteen Colonies expressed these whishes.

One frustration after another, the Island was always a highly coveted apple. The triumph of the armed struggle over Batista’s tyranny was a hash blow to these US aspirations after the Cuban people seized the political power of the country.

This January, 49 years after Washington put into force this illegal measure that prevents US citizens from benefiting from numerous services they can obtain in the land of Jose Marti, the rejection of this arbitrary imposition among the American people is gradually increasing.

A recent report by AFP is eloquent. It reveals that 70% of Americans are in favor of lifting the Cuba travel ban while 59% believe that it is time to try a new policy toward the Cuban government.

According to a poll carried out by the website www.WorldPublicOpinion.org, 62% of Republican voters, 77% of Democrats, and 66% of Independents, wish to travel to the Caribbean Island without restrictions.

A total of 59% of the people surveyed answered affirmatively to the question: Is it time to try a new policy toward Cuba?

This issue is a subject of increasing debates in the US Congress, where the number of legislators in favor of lifting the ban and allowing US citizens to visit Cuba – as they can visit China, Viet Nam and North Korea, nations with which Washington still has controversies - grows.

In this regard, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said that, by December 2009, a bill for the lifting of the Cuba travel restrictions had advanced, although he admitted that it is still short of the 218 votes needed to pass in the House of Representatives.

The essence of the issue is not whether or not the measure entails a sanction against Cuba, but rather that it constitutes a violation of the US citizens’ constitutional right to travel freely.