It’s no secret Ernest Hemingway enjoyed his liquor. Though he swore he never drank while he wrote (“You’re thinking of Faulkner,” he once said when accused by a reporter), he was no stranger to the bottle, and his literature often featured alcohol consumption of some kind, from café sipping to full on benders.

While living in Cuba in the 1940s he became a regular at the  El Floridita, home of the famous bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, who locals called "El Rey de los Cocteleros," or The King of the Cocktails. Because Hemingway fell in love with the daiquiri there, Ribalaigua (who is also famous for inventing more than 200 drinks and adapting dozens of others) created a modified version of the classic.

The story goes that when stopping into El Floridita to use the restroom one day, Hemingway heard people talking about how good the daiquiris were. Curious, he decided to order one. After one sip he asked for another, but with 'less sugar and more rum’— and so the Hemingway Daiquiri was born, with Ribalaigua adding grapefruit juice and a few drops of maraschino liqueur to two jiggers of light rum and the juice of a fresh lime.

As legend has it, Hemingway downed 17 of these babies over the course of one afternoon in 1942. While we strongly advise against trying to beat his record (speaking of ‘Death in the Afternoon’…), we do recommend trying this recipe out at home using BLY Silver Rum, a smooth and flavorful base for this legendary drink.

BLY Hemingway Daiquiri

Ingredients

2 oz. BLY Silver Rum

.75 oz. lime juice

.5 oz grapefruit juice

.5 oz maraschino liqueur

Instructions

Mix all ingredients in a martini shaker filled with ice. Shake, strain into glass and garnish with a grapefruit & lime.

Don’t miss a single sippable thing!

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine