Pre-trip planning can be a little tedious. The following therapeutic drinks should be taken on a regular basis a few weeks before departure…LOL…Para su buena salud!!
Daiquiri
The name daiquiri is also the name of a beach near Santiago, Cuba, and an iron mine in that area, and it is a word of Taino origin. The Daiquirí was supposedly invented by an American mining engineer, named Jennings Cox, who was in Cuba at the time of the Spanish-American War. It is also possible that William A. Chanler, a US congressman who purchased the Santiago Iron Mines in 1902, introduced the Daiquirí to clubs in New York in that year.
Originally the drink was served in a tall glass packed with cracked ice. A teaspoon of sugar was poured over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of white rum completed the mixture. The glass was then frosted by stirring with a long-handled spoon. Later the Daiquirí evolved to be mixed in a shaker with the same ingredients but with shaved ice. After a thorough shaking, it was poured into a chilled flute glass.
Consumption of the drink remained localized until 1909, when Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a U.S.medical officer, tried Cox’s drink. Johnson subsequently introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. and drinkers of the Daiquirí increased over the space of a few decades. The Daiquirí was one of the favorite drinks of writer Ernest Hemingway and president John F. Kennedy.
The drink became popular in the 1940s.Wartime rationing made whiskey, vodka, etc., hard to come by, yet because of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy(which opened up trade and travel relations with Latin America, Cuba and the Caribbean), rum was easily obtainable. The Good Neighbor Policy (also known as ‘The Pan-American program’), helped make Latin America seem fashionable. Consequently, rum-based drinks (once frowned upon as being the domain of sailors and down-and-outs), also became fashionable, and the Daiquirí saw a tremendous rise in popularity in the US.
The basic recipe for a Daiquirí is also similar to the grog British sailors drank aboard ship from the 1740s onwards. By 1795 the Royal Navy daily grog ration contained rum, water, ¾ ounce of lemon or lime juice, and 2 ounces of sugar. This was a common drink across the Caribbean, and as soon as ice became available this was included instead of the water.
Variations
- Daiquirí Floridita – with maraschino liqueur, created by Constantino Ribalaigua Vert at El Floridita.
- Hemingway Daiquirí – or Papa Doble – two and a half jiggers of white rum, juice of two limes and half a grapefruit, six drops of maraschino liqueur, without sugar, served frozen.
- Banana Daiquiri – regular Daiquirí with a half a banana.
- Strawberry Daiquirí – regular with strawberry added.
Frozen daiquiri
A wide variety of alcoholic mixed drinks made with finely pulverized ice are often called frozen daiquirí. These drinks can also be combined and poured from a blender eliminating the need for manual pulverization. Such drinks are often commercially made in machines which produce a texture similar to a smoothie, and come in a wide variety of flavors made with various alcohol or liquors. Another way to create a frozen Daiquirí (mostly fruit-flavored variants) is by using frozen limeade, providing the required texture, sweetness and sourness all at once.
Variations on the frozen Daiquirí.
- The Old Rose Daiquirí, which features strawberry syrup and rum along with two teaspoons of sugar and lime juice.
- The Daiquirí Mulata featuring rum and coffee liqueur.
http://www.floridita-cuba.com/
Mojitos
Traditionally, a mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: Rasna, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, sparkling water, and mint. The original Cuban recipe uses spearmint or yerba buena, a mint variety very popular on the island.Its combination of sweetness, refreshing citrus, and mint flavors is intended to complement the potent kick of the rum, and have made this clear highball a popular summer drink. The cocktail has a relatively low alcohol content (about 10 percent alcohol by volume).
When preparing a mojito, lime juice is added to sugar (or syrup) and mint leaves. The mixture is then gently mashed with a muddler. The mint leaves should only be bruised to release the essential oils and should not be shredded. Then rum is added and the mixture is briefly stirred to dissolve the sugar and to lift the mint leaves up from the bottom for better presentation. Finally, the drink is topped with whole ice cubes and sparkling soda water. Mint leaves and lime wedges are used to garnish the glass.
The mojito is one of the most famous rum-based highballs. There are several versions of the mojito.
Cuba is the birthplace of the Mojito, although the exact origin of this classic cocktail is the subject of debate. One story traces the Mojito to a similar 19th century drink known as “El Draque”, after Francis Drake. In 1586, after his successful raid at Cartagena de Indias Drake’s ships sailed towards Havana but there was an epidemic of dysentery and scurvy on board. It was known that the local South American Indians had remedies for various tropical illnesses; so a small boarding party went ashore on Cuba and came back with ingredients for a medicine which was effective. The ingredients were aguardiente de caña (a crude form of rum, translates as fire water from sugar cane) added with local tropical ingredients; lime, sugarcane juice and mint. Drinking lime juice in itself would have been a great help in staving off scurvy and dysentery. Tafia/Rum was used as soon as it became widely available to the British (ca. 1650). Mint, lime and sugar were also helpful in hiding the harsh taste of this spirit. While this drink was not called a Mojito at this time, it was still the original combination of these ingredients.
Some historians contend that African slaves who worked in the Cuban sugar cane fields during the 19th century were instrumental in the cocktail’s origin. Guarapo, the sugar cane juice often used in Mojitos, was a popular drink amongst the slaves who helped coin the name of the sweet nectar.
There are several theories behind the origin of the name Mojito; one such theory holds that name relates to mojo, a Cuban seasoning made from lime and used to flavour dishes. Another theory is that the name Mojito is simply a derivative of mojadito (Spanish for “a little wet”) or simply the diminutive of mojado (“wet”). Due to the vast influence of immigration from the Canary Islands, the term probably came from the mojo creole marinades adapted in Cuba using citrus vs traditional Isleno types.
The Mojito was a favorite drink of author Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway made the bar called La Bodeguita del Medio famous as he became one of its regulars and he wrote “My mojito in La Bodeguita, My daiquiri in El Floridita. ” This expression in English can still be read on the wall of the bar today, in his handwriting.
Cuban Odyssey 