How Would You Like the Strawberry Daiquiri for Your Summer Drink?

These days, if you order a ‘daiquiri’ in a bar or watering hole, more often than not you’d get a slushy, red drink that would look much like a Bloody Mary after a vampire bit it. Frosty cold, yes; mildly tastes of rum, check; shaken or stirred by personal preference, okay; with the obligatory slice of lemon or lime at the glass’s rim. Is it daiquiri? Yes, but the strawberry kind, which is so well-known it is what many bartenders think is the one and only daiquiri.

But even this famous daiquiri recipe has many versions, including those that taste so sweet you’d think honeybees made them, or plainly tastes like canned strawberries, which it probably is. But of course, sweetness is a matter of personal taste and what is very sweet to one may not be so to another. Also, if you use actual strawberries, they may differ in sweetness from others.

Some people even use vodka, instead of rum, and still call the concoction ‘Strawberry Daiquiri’. Although that would be a departure from the idea of the original daiquiri, variations of the cocktail do occur once in a while, depending on the availability of the ingredients. In other words, if you use canned lime essence in your daiquiri, isn’t it still faithful to the original concept? Or if you replace fresh strawberries with powdered strawberry flavoring, it could still be called ‘Strawberry Daiquiri’, if all the other ingredients are as in the original cocktail, couldn’t it?

A strawberry daiquiri recipe mixes two ounces of white rum, a half-ounce of fresh lime juice, one-fourth ounce simple syrup (as sweetener) and six strawberries. The fruits are hulled and crushed in the cocktail shaker. Add the rum, lime and syrup and stir. Add crushed ice and shake it vigorously, then strain into a martini glass rimmed with sugar. Add a wedge of lime or a slice of strawberry to garnish the cocktail.

Another recipe uses half a cup of sliced strawberries (about ¾ cup or 80 grams of whole berries), a tablespoon of lime juice, one jigger of rum, sweetener to taste (sugar or syrup) and a handful of crushed ice. Everything is dumped into the osterizer and blended, then poured into the correct glass. Not much difference from the first; just for the taste.

If you want a sugar-less strawberry daiquiri, use an artificial sweetener in lieu of sugar. Do not include the rum or any other alcoholic drink if you want it to be a summer cooler for children. You can also substitute lemon for lime, and it would taste practically the same, at least for non-connoisseurs of cocktails.

One thing to always remember in making daiquiris: do not make it very sweet. Another thing: the strawberry daiquiri is based on the original daiquiri, and is made so by simply adding strawberries. So if you want to make blueberry daiquiri, use blueberry instead of strawberry to add to the original daiquiri cocktail. With that, maybe you can add one more version to the famous daiquiri line of cocktail drinks.

By the way, the daiquiri as a drink is said to be almost exactly the same drink as the ‘grog’ issued to British sailors around the world in the days of sailing ships. Isn’t that interesting?