From the Daiquiri to the Mojito and beyond, Cuban cocktails are legendary.
Classic cars, colourful architecture, communist revolutions – there’s plenty to dig into when it comes to Cuba. But we’re here today to talk about drinks, because Cuba’s contribution to cocktail history far outsizes its modest population and small geography (sure, it has 4,195 islands, but they’re tiny). Despite being cut off from the west for most of the 20th century, Cuban cocktails have become bar staples on the level of the Margarita, Martini or Negroni – iconic drinks you’ll find anywhere around the globe.
We’ll get into how and why this is the case in just a bit but, first, a quick refresher on the big names in Cuban cocktails.
Beyond the Big Three, there are endless classic Cuban cocktails, like the El Presidente (white rum, dry vermouth, orange curaçao and grenadine), Saoco (white rum, coconut water, lime and sugar), Canchánchara (white rum – or aguardiente, originally – with honey, key lime). There’s a million of ‘em.
So then, why has Cuba had such a heavy hand in our cocktail culture? Let’s dig in.
There are definitely external factors that brought Cuban cocktails to global attention, but we should never gloss over the importance of the Cuban people in driving their own cocktail culture.
As we saw above, the cocktails that went on to dominate bar menus often existed in some form long before outsiders (mostly Americans) caught on in the 20th century. And, once Americans did start travelling to Cuba, it was mostly cantineros – Cuban bartenders – like El Floridita’s Constantino Ribalaigua Vert who came up with the now-standard versions of iconic drinks and new creations we celebrate.
There are some really great, detailed accounts of Cuban cantineros out there (like this one from NPR about Ribalaigua) that give some broader context on the state of the cocktail culture from within. That being said, there are two big outside influences entwined with Cuba’s rise to world prominence...
In 1919, the Volstead Act made it illegal to buy, sell and produce a whole range of alcoholic beverages in a whole lot of contexts in the US. Americans didn’t necessarily want to give up their drinks and, internally, that meant a big rise in the black market. Externally, people just went to places where drinking was still A-okay – places like Cuba.
In what’s been called the American Bartender Invasion, out-of-work bartenders joined thirsty holidaymakers heading to Cuba, where some 7,000 Havana bars serviced them just fine. The result was a cultural exchange between the two mixed drink traditions, with rum- and lime-heavy drinks growing in popularity with Americans, and new techniques and ingredients (like vermouth) latching on with Cubans.
It was during this period of the 1920s and ’30s that many of Cuba’s classics were refined and shaped into their current form. At bars like La Bodeguita del Medio and El Floridita, the Mojito and Daiquiri shifted and changed to suit evolving tastes – El Floridita is where Constantino Ribalaigua Vert made the first blended ice version of the Daiquiri, and La Bodeguita claims the modern Mojito. Plenty of cocktails were invented during Prohibition, too, like the Mary Pickford (white rum, pineapple juice, maraschino liqueur, grenadine) and El Presidente – both created in Cuba by American bartenders.
The influx of American bartenders had another effect – that non-English speaking Cuban cantineros ended up being forced out of work. In some ways, this fortified Cuba’s national bartending scene, with cantineros banding together to create the Cantinero Club, requiring full members to commit 200 drinks to memory – a serious boon for Cuban bars once Prohibition ended in 1933 and expat bartenders returned to the States.
Ernest Hemingway has two claims to fame: his writing (including all-time classics like The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises) and his drinking. That his fondness of cocktails can compete with some of the most iconic literature of the 20th century tells you all you need to know about his habits.
Hemingway began travelling to Cuba in the 1930s and took up full-time residence outside of Havana in 1940, quickly establishing a rhythm of writing in the morning and sipping cocktails the rest of the time. His prowess and fondness for mixed drinks is legendary, with plenty of documented accounts of his bar adventures (seriously, enjoy that Google rabbit hole). He also had a hand in the creation and refining of some extremely famous drinks.
For instance, he used to rave about Constantino Ribalaigua Vert’s frozen Daiquiris (“Oh those daiquiris that nobody makes like old Constantino,” he wrote in 1943). And there’s even a version named for him – the Papa Doble (he was nicknamed Papa and ‘doble’ means double) or Hemingway Daiquiri. The drink doubles the rum and subtracts the sugar from a Daiquiri, while adding grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur. Not for the faint of heart, that one.
Today, Hemingway is so tied up in Cuban cocktail mythology that El Floridita (which, from all reports, is a bit of a tourist trap now) has a bronze bust of him on the bar. For a man who only ever drank the drinks and never made them, Hemingway has done plenty to ensure Cuban cocktails remain some of the world’s most-ordered and best-loved.
