Cocktail recipe
Hemingway Special
A fierce, dry rum sour where grapefruit and maraschino sharpen the classic Daiquiri.
Ingredients
- 60 ml (2 oz) white rum
- 40 ml (1⅓ oz) fresh grapefruit juice
- 15 ml (½ oz) fresh lime juice
- 15 ml (½ oz) maraschino liqueur
- Garnish: none
Preparation
Shake rum, fresh grapefruit, lime and maraschino briskly with abundant ice. Double-strain into a deeply chilled coupe. Leave the surface bare: the citrus and rum should make their entrance without decoration.
Glassware
Chilled coupe
History
The drink belongs to Havana's El Floridita, where bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert became renowned for his Daiquiris and Ernest Hemingway was a celebrated regular. The well-known anecdote says Hemingway requested a double rum Daiquiri without sugar, leading to the *Papa Doble*; later recipes added grapefruit and maraschino. The sequence of specific changes is retold differently, and the historical blended Papa Doble should not be treated as identical to the modern shaken Hemingway Special. The widely used International Bartenders Association Hemingway Special formula is 60 ml rum, 40 ml grapefruit, 15 ml lime and 15 ml maraschino, without sugar.
Mixology View
We choose the dry shaken Hemingway Special, not a sweetened contemporary riff or a literal frozen Papa Doble. If grapefruit is unusually tart, a bartender can suggest a sweeter variation—but it should be named as such.