046 – Hemingway Special

A Sydney Covid ‘lock-down’ exploration of the ‘Hemingway Special’ or ‘Papa Doble’ cocktail.

Lock-down has inspired me to explore this great cocktail, a famous adjustment to the original ‘Daiquiri’ cocktail, also sometimes known as the ‘Hemingway Daiquiri’. A famous drink from Cuba, connecting a famous author, with a famous bar, and a famous Cuban bartender.

Make your own ‘mix-at-home’ #Locktail ‘Hemingway Special’.

METHOD – Add 90ml (double quantity) of White Rum (ideally Cuban), 15ml Luxardo Maraschino, 60ml fresh grapefruit juice, and 30ml fresh lime juice into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until cold (10-15 seconds) and double strain into a cold and large cocktail glass. No garnish.

HISTORICAL NOTES – Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American writer and winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature for the ‘Old Man and the Sea’. He may be almost as famous as a cocktail drinker, being connected in one way or another with a host of classic cocktails.

There is a wonderful piece about Hemingway in the 1965 ‘The Atlantic’, written by Robert Manning, recalling his 1954 interview with Hemingway at his home Finca Vigia in Cuba. The 1954 interview included a visit to ‘El Floridita’ where the ‘Hemingway Special Daiquiri’ was born. You can read it online here.

Hemingway regularly stayed at the Hotel Ambos Mundos between 1932 to 1939 and then maintained a house ‘Finca Vigia’ (Lookout Farm) from 1940 on 15-acres about 25km outside of Havana, Cuba, until leaving Cuba in July, 1960.

In 1914 Constantino Ribalaigua Vert (1888–1952), better known as ‘Constante’) started working at El Floridita as a bartender (cantinero), by 1918 he was the fish restaurant and cocktail bar’s owner. Constante, later known as ‘The Cocktail King of Cuba’, published his cocktail recipe book in 1935, called ‘Bar La Florida Cocktails’, which included one of his early innovations, the ‘Frozen Daiquiri’ (Daiquiri Num, 4, shown below).

At some point in the 1930’s Vert and Hemingway met, with Hemingway trying Vert’s ‘Daiquiri’, then ordering another and asking for “less sugar and more Rum”. The stronger cocktail became a standard for Hemingway, and other patrons also began ordering the Hemingway style Daiquiri. Hemingway was known affectionately as ‘Papa’ in Cuba, and the cocktail would become known and ordered as the ‘Papa Doble’ (Hemingway’s double-strength Daiquiri).

Commentators have mentioned that Ernest Hemingway had an aversion to excess ‘sugar’, and this plays out in a number of his cocktail choices and his infamous hangover cures. In 1961 he was misdiagnosed before his death, missing his true condition of ‘haemochromatosis’, a metabolic disorder sometimes known as ‘bronze diabetes’ or the ‘Celtic curse’ which is essentially a genetic ‘iron overload’ disorder. Hemingway was well know for a palate more on the bitter side, including absinthe, lime, Angostura and other bitters.

In Philip Greene’s 2012 book ‘To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion’, there is a recount of Hemingway having 17 of these Daiquiri’s in the course of an afternoon in 1942.

When Robert Manning and Ernest Hemingway returned to ‘Papa’s Corner’ of El Floridita in 1954, the first thing Hemingway ordered was “three Papa Dobles”.

THE OFFICIAL MIX – The ‘Hemingway Special’ is on the International Bartender Association’s (IBA) ‘Contemporary Classics’ official cocktail list, here. The recipe calls for 60ml Rum, 40ml Grapefruit Juice, 15ml Maraschino Luxardo, and 15ml fresh Lime Juice, shaken and strained into a large cocktail glass. No garnish. The basic problem with this IBA recipe, is it is hardly a ‘Papa Doble’, as all of Constante’s Daiquiri recipes had 60ml Rum, so there is no doubling of anything in this very ‘non-Hemingway’ recipe.

Alejandro Bolívar Rodríguez, the Head Bartender at El Floridita, calls for 90ml Rum, 5ml Maraschino, 30ml Grapefruit Juice and 15ml of Lime Juice. Simon Difford’s ‘Hemingway Special’ calls for 105ml Rum, 22.5ml Maraschino, 30ml Grapefruit Juice, 30ml Lime Juice and 15ml (2:1) Simple Syrup. The issue with the last, is that Hemingway has an issues with the sugar inclusion in a daiquiri, see the history above.

TASTING NOTES – As you would expect from the history, this is a rum-heavy (double) and less-sweet (no syrup or sugar) version of the Daiquiri, with the addition of some bitterness from the Grapefruit. The Grapefruit and Lime have a nice balance, making it a dual-citrus flavour.

LOCKTAIL CHANGES – I have lifted the Rum from the IBA level, to at least boost what would have been a 1930 standard El Floridita 60ml Daiquiri to 90ml, the same as the Alejandro Bolívar Rodríguez instruction. I have kept the IBA Maraschino at 15ml, I think more than that is overpowering, and I could happily drop it to 5ml, the same again as Rodríguez. For me, the cocktail needs more juice than any of the official recipes, to at least partially balance the 105ml of alcohol. I have gone with 60ml of fresh grapefruit juice to keep the sweetness down, ‘Papa’ style, and 30ml of fresh lime juice. All in all a lovely and refreshing cocktail with a big rum hit, how someone could have 17 of these in one day is beyond comprehension.

YOUR LOCKTAIL EXPERIENCE – If you’d rather taste than read, I am progressively building an ingredient list and other sourcing information on this site. I will re-use ingredients where I can (good for my budget too), so that the cost goes down overtime if you are ‘playing at home’. Sorry that this mix may have broken the rules on ingredient ‘re-use’.

Let me know what you think.

Cocktails you’d like reinvented.

Recipes you’ve tried and your ‘score’.

This is the sixth cocktail of the 1931-1940 bracket of ‘Locktail’ remixes. Full list in the index.