Havana’s Bars and Cocktails
Before my eyes lies a booklet that means a lot to those who like living the good life: Cuban Cocktails: One Hundred Rum Recipes, by late writer and journalist Fernando G. Campoamor.
Perhaps the title could render meaningless to some, but most of those who visit Havana can cotton on to the author's interest in offering an assortment a mixtures that many people now enjoy very much in this city.
We're talking about taking a stroll and sitting down, either day or night, in the stool of a small or big bar with the sole purpose of getting a refreshing drink or having a good time, of making a pass at a beautiful girl or just engaging in friendly conversation.
That's the right time for rum, a beverage with a culture and history of its own that has linked Cubans with sugarcane since the times of the Spanish colonial rule.
Mr. Campoamor himself, who spent so many summer afternoons hanging out with U.S. novelist Ernest Hemingway at the El Floridita bar –a real myth of Cuba's finest cuisine- and sipping at the drink the other had proposed, acknowledged the close ties between rum and Cuban identity.
El Floridita cherishes over 400 thirst-quenching recipes whose names bring back memories of past stories, legends, characters and milestone moments.
Mojito is no doubt the best-known Cuban drink, followed by Daiquiri, Mulata, Cuba Libre and many others that stand for the most genuine insular spirit.
Let's say you put a teaspoon of sugar in a glass, pour some lemon juice and dissolve the mixture in a tad of soda water. Then, you add a few leaves of peppermint and mash the stems without splintering the plant, just until the sap is completely squeezed out. A few ice cubes and half an ounce of silver-dry rum will do the trick. To top it all off, fill the rest of the glass with soda water, swizzle it a little bit and garnish with a twig of peppermint. That's a mojito with all the warmth and flavor that Cuba can add to it.
That's the way a masterpiece of Cuban cocktail is made, the same drink that whets people's desire to learn about the country and jaw it up with the locals, the drink that, above all, quenches the smoldering tropical heat.
Daiquiri is another landmark cocktail. This one, though, was named after the copper mines in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. That was the ideal drink for Hemingway who, by the way, used to quaff a dozen a day plus another he called “the running board drink for the road” when driving his way from El Floridita to his Vigia estate in the outskirts of town, now turned into a museum that pays everlasting tribute to the Nobel Prize-winning author.
But Hemingway's Daiquiri was quite different. The original recipe used to take half a teaspoon of sugar, some lemon juice, a few drops of cherry cordial, one and a half ounce of silver-dry rum and abundant frappe ice; all that in a blender. However, Hemingway himself cut down on the sugar and doubled the amount of rum to really put a kick in it.
Therefore, those with an epicurean sense of what life is all about, are really going to feel at home in Havana, jumping from one bar to the next and swigging such great cocktails as Cuba Libre, Presidente, Mulata, Isla de Pins, Saoco and Havana Libre.
Mojito Ingredients: silver-dry rum, the juice of half a lemon, one or two teaspoons of sugar, soda water, ice and fresh peppermint.
How to make it: Mix the sugar and the lemon juice into thick syrup. Pour it into a long glass with rum. Add the peppermint leaves and crush them with a teaspoon to squeeze out the sap. Shake it well and add more soda water. Then add the ice cubes and garnish with peppermint. You can put a few drops of angostura if you wish.
San Francisco Ingredients: four ounces of fruit punch, four ounces of guava juice and half an ounce of grenadine.
How to make it: Pour all the ingredients in a cup. Garnish with orange rinks, peppermint leaves and a cherry on top.
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