I was invited to compete in a Havana club rum competition, I originally got the wrong rum, thinking we were using the 5 or 7 yr old gold rums not the 3yr old, that shaped my idea for the drink. As a result of that & the article on agar clarification I'd read and some pouring over Embury I decided to go with a new variation on the Hemingway Daiquiri.
The first job was to get & taste Havana club 3yr old. Its a white rum, but aged in oak barrels, giving it depth and a very pale straw colour, a great cocktailing rum really. Then it was time to try the gel clarification. The first test gave glorious results as a thin stream of pale yellow juice ran & dripped from the muslin. For some reason though the clarified grapefruit & lime didn't play well together. Using cordial instead of juice for the lime fixed the problem, which meant the daiquiri was a bit less Hemingway, but seriously how much of that diabetes was due to the great man's rum habits ? I now had a working recipe so it was time to clarify more grapefruit ready for the actual competition.
Disaster this came out less than crystal clear (not a technique problem, just a hiccup in the process). A bit of filtration took care of that (after a tense couple of hours where I worried enough juice would make it through the filter). Daiquiris are normally shaken to get them good and cold, that wasn't going to work here, so a bit of mucking about with an instant freeze pack allowed me to chill my rum and away we went
I was up against some seriously stiff competition, so I'm reasonably happy not to win and it was a great night of mixology & rum, so here is my take on the Hemingway daiquiri,
The clearly irresponsible
60ml Havana club 3yr old rum (another white rum will work, but won't be as good)
20ml Clarified Grapefruit juice
15ml Maraschino liqueur
10ml Lime cordial (I use Roses' see debates about the Gimlet)
Stir over ice, double strain (Hemingway was particular about ice in his drinks) and garnish with a grapefruit twist.
Here it is with an ordinary Hemingway for comparison purposes.(Hemingway left, Clearly right)
