Daiquiri

Making a daiquiri is all about the art of balanced simplicity. Not too sweet or sour, the daiquiri requires only three ingredients—your favorite rum, plus lime and sugar—to shake up your evening or afternoon.

If you think this sounds like a mojito, you’re close. While daiquiris and mojitos share rum and lime juice, mojitos bring mint and sparkling soda to the party. I wouldn’t turn down the offer of either drink, but ultimately a daiquiri is a showcase for its spirit: rum. A zing of lime and a drop of sweetness only stop by to make it taste even better.

What is a daiquiri?

To many, a daiquiri conjures up a pool scene where everyone’s lounging around with whipped cream-topped frozen drinks. While there’s nothing wrong with that—the fruity, frozen strawberry daiquiri is popular for a reason—the classic combo of rum, lime and sugar has a rightful place among the mighty martinis and Manhattans of the mixology world.

While the combo of lime and rum has been around for hundreds of years in the Caribbean, the classic daiquiri recipe we know today is often credited to Jennings Stockton Cox Jr., an American engineer working in Cuba who made a sour-like cocktail using the local spirit in the late 1890s. It was named after Daiquiri, a small beach town east of Santiago, Cuba.

Today, the daiquiri comes in many forms and variations, from straight-up, spirit-forward creations to ones like the Hemingway daiquiri with its grapefruit and maraschino liqueur, and the blender-blitzed versions everyone loves.

Daiquiri Ingredients

• Rum: Dynamic daiquiri cocktail recipes deserve the best rum. For a milder taste, pick up a white rum; for a bolder flavor, try something with a little age on it, like a gold rum. You can’t go wrong either way. Save the rest for other rum drinks.
• Fresh lime juice: Fresh-squeezed juice is always best, but in this cocktail, it’s essential. The bottled juice you get at the store is often sweetened and will upset the delicate balance of the drink.
• Simple syrup: Dissolve one part sugar in one part water and you have simple syrup, it’s that easy! But I won’t tell if you buy a bottle of the premade stuff, pinky swear.

Directions

Step 1: Fill your shaker

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Fill a cocktail shaker three-fourths full with ice. Add the rum, fresh lime juice and simple syrup.

Editor’s Tip: I don’t know two mixologists who agree on the exact measurements for the classic daiquiri recipe. There’s always the same amount of rum, but if you want to go sweeter, add a bit more simple syrup and chill out on the lime. If you want to keep it tart, turn up the lime and reduce the simple. Find your happy place somewhere between 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce of each.

Step 2: Shake it up

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Cover and shake until condensation forms on the outside of the shaker.

Editor’s Tip: A proper shake takes about 10 to 15 seconds. It chills and dilutes your drink to perfection.

Step 3: Strain and serve

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Strain the drink into a chilled coupe glass.

Editor’s Tip: A perfect daiquiri will have a layer of foam on the top. To get it that way, place a springy Hawthorne strainer on the mouth of the shaker and then pour it through a fine mesh strainer over your coupe. This removes any ice chips or pulp that can ruin the cocktail’s texture. Check out our guide to see all the bar tools you need for a classy home bar.

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Daiquiri Variations

• Make a frozen daiquiri: Add lime, rum and simple syrup to your blender with a scoop of ice to make a perfect slushy treat. If you are making several drinks at a time, keep the ratios in mind. You don’t want your drink to be unbalanced.
• Add fruit: If the blender is plugged in, you might as well add a couple of strawberries, blackberries, bananas, or peaches to the mix! Fresh or frozen fruit work great for frozen drinks. You may just adjust the simple syrup so the frozen daiquiri isn’t overly sweet.
• Try a Hemingway daiquiri: This sophisticated version calls for 1/2 ounce of maraschino liqueur and 1/2 ounce of fresh grapefruit juice, along with the rum and lime juice. Shake it in a cocktail shaker with ice, then strain and serve it. Story has it that famous Cuban resident Ernest Hemingway didn’t want sugar in his daiquiri (he preferred extra rum!), and instead of blitzing these in the blender, he liked his daiquiris shaken and served over crushed ice.

Can you make daiquiris ahead of time?

The best daiquiri is fresh from the shaker tin, but that doesn’t mean you can’t scale up the ingredients, combine them in a pitcher, and pop it in the fridge. When you’re ready to serve daiquiris, stir the pitcher until it’s well-mixed, fill your shaker with ice and shake up one to two drinks at a time. In an airtight container, a batch of daiquiris can last three days in the refrigerator.

Daiquiri Tips

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What type of glass do you use for a daiquiri?

I always say that the proper glass for a cocktail is any glass within reach, but the traditional choice of cocktail glasses for a daiquiri is a coupe. I like to shop estate sales for vintage glasses to add to my collection and have found some amazing coupes and martini glasses that practically cry out to be filled with a delicious daiquiri. But you can serve a daiquiri over ice in a rocks glass or in any vessel that will hold it.

What can you serve with a daiquiri?

From beaches to brunches to bedtime, daiquiris are such a classic cocktail that they are almost always appropriate. Give a nod to their history by pairing them with a Cuban sandwich, ropa vieja or other Cuban recipes. For me, this is a posh pre-dinner sipper, so I love pairing it with chilled oysters, shrimp appetizers and bright, fresh salads.