LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2022

THE DAIQUIRI

WHICH LIME?

Go for the Mexican lime ( Citrus x aurantifolia ), also called the key lime, over the Persian lime ( Citrus x latifolia ). It’s smaller but much more aromatic.

The cocktails are too cold, evidence that all is not well in the world of make-believe spy JimWormold in Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene (1958). “They had another free Daiquiri each, frozen so stiffly that it had to be drunk in tiny drops to avoid a sinus-pain.” Temperature is also important…

QUOTABLE

“Let’s Take a Daiquiri Time Out!” Secretary Cleary (Christopher Walken) in Wedding Crashers (2005) calls for a refreshment break in a touch football game. Within a decade, the DTO had become a bartending industry ritual in Boston’s cocktail bars, and it’s now caught on there with customers.

Daiquiri Snackery

There’s a Gulf shrimp cocktail on the menu at El Floridita in Havana that’s made in the way Hemingway most enjoyed (according to the establishment): just-cooked shrimp seasoned with lemon juice, salt and pepper, served draped over a cocktail glass. Seafood is the obvious accompaniment for a classic Daiquiri. Its refreshingly tart lime works especially well with the sweet saltiness of fresh shellfish. Two recipes from the Food & Drink archives at LCBO.com strike up a particularly happy conversation with the cocktail: Cilantro-Lime Fish Tacos and Scallop Ceviche Canapés . For something simpler, try twice-fried plantain Tostones , the ubiquitous Caribbean bar snack.

WHICH GARNISH? The classic Daiquiri is ungarnished, though it

has been seen with a lime wheel posed on the rim of the glass. Banana Daiquiris wear anything from tiki umbrellas and orchids to banana dolphins. Cut a banana in half. Using the half with the stalk, cut through the stalk horizontally as if it were a dolphin’s smiling snout. Keep the “mouth” open with a maraschino cherry, and draw on eyes and a blowhole.

WHICH SUGAR?

FUN FACT

When Jeff “Beachbum” Berry opened the excellent Latitude 29, his tiki cocktail bar in New Orleans, he spent 18 months perfecting the house Daiquiri recipe. He uses a mix of four parts white sugar to one part demerara sugar, dissolved in the lime juice. Would he swap in simple syrup? Never! It changes the cocktail’s texture, according to Berry, “and muddies the crisp, snappy vibe that a proper Daiquiri should have.”

JULY 19 IS NATIONAL

DAIQUIRI DAY IN THE U.S. NO ONE KNOWS WHY— OR WHO PICKED THE DATE.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID SPARSHOTT

90 FOOD & DRINK SUMMER 2022