Daiquiris

Three ingredients, so tricky

I am a recent convert to the Daiquiri, won over by Simon Difford’s great survey of the Daiquiri. The delicacy of the classic Daiquiri-white rum, lime juice and sugar-makes it surprisingly hard to get right, but also very rewarding when you do. When done right, the drink is electric. For me, it literally lights up my tongue. Alcohol and citric acid from the lime juice are already stimulating. In the Daiquiri sugar amplifies the effect. A good Daiquiri is clean and refreshing, getting the sugar right so that it’s lively on the tongue is the real secret to a good Daiquiri. You can see why it is enduringly popular despite being unforgiving to hasty preparation.

I had not thought of Daiquiris for several months until a recent receipt of cardamom bitters from Matt Bufton. I wanted a drink where subtle cardamom flavors of his bitters could shine. An Old Fashioned might be too heavy and make appreciation of the cardamom difficult. The Daiquiri is the perfect drink to show off the bitters, its very round mount shape affords a perfect stage to show off the spice of the cardamom and creates room for the bitters in the small aftertaste.

I used Simon Difford’s Cardamom Daiquiri recipe, and the results were delightful. The classic Daiquiri is the same drink without the cardamom pods or cardamom bitters. The drink also got me thinking about why the Daiquiri works. I wrote about the Lemon Drop to introduce my thoughts on the “shape” of a cocktail on the palate, and I like using the Taylor Series as a framework for evaluating the relative contribution of cocktail components. The Lemon Drop (4 parts vodka, 2 part lemon juice, 1 part simple syrup) is sweeter and less lively than the Daiquiri (10 parts white rum, 3 parts lime juice, 2 parts simple syrup). At these proportions, the alcohol looks like it will dominate your experience (first term in the Taylor Series), but it does not. I realized that this is a titration to enable the acidity of the lime (the real first term in the Taylor Series) and the sweetness of the sugar (the second, and perhaps third terms) to be primarily sensations for your tongue. The aromatics are important, but they support the alcohol, acid and sugar exciting your tongue. Difford recommends replacing the simple syrup with an equal amount of powdered sugar. I think this insight helps create liveliness on the tongue worthy of the third term of the Taylor Series. The 10ml of powdered sugar in the Difford recipe is very close to 2 teaspoons, undershoot 2 teaspoons by a small amount because not all of the sugar in 2 teaspoons will go into solution during the shake leaving a visually unappealing white slurry in the bottom of the glass. Powdered sugar is very finely ground, more granular sugars will not dissolve fast enough during the shake. Trying the simple syrup version side-by-side with the powdered sugar version highlights the effect of the pure sugar on your tongue.

This is a drink about neural excitation of the tongue, but there is room for adding some aromatics, especially aromatics that are themselves delicate and can be lost in more complex presentations. Cardamom bitters work well in this space, as do lavender bitters. I previously wrote about the Lavender Margarita, and the Lavender Daiquiri is a similar drink, except the lavender will be more prominent since white rum is not as flavorful as reposado tequila and the Daiquiri contains less lime juice. The extra space means that you need fewer dashes of lavender bitters (3 or 4, depending on the lavender bitters and your appreciation of them). I expect that other spice based bitters would work well in the Daiquiri, although in experimenting with Daiquiris using Bob’s Bitters ginger bitters, the ginger shows up as a heat more than an aroma. I’ve been resisting making bitters, but Matt’s cardamom bitters have me thinking about how clove or ginger-clove bitters might work in a Daiquiri. Bob’s Bitters also has a coriander flavored bitter that is interesting, and Bob’s also makes Difford’s Daiquiri Bitters which I will have to order online.

So far, my appreciation of the Daiquiri only extends to adding flavored bitters. I have not tried making any of the Daiquiri versions involving other fruit juices. I think that the fizz on the tongue from the pure sugar would be lost. The product would be more of a Tiki drink, a fun category of cocktail, but I am not sure that any single Tiki drink has captured people’s attention the way the Daiquiri has. At least, I have not encountered the equivalent analyses or competing recipes for Tiki drinks that the Daiquiri has prompted.