The Bacardi Cocktail

Some cocktails have multiple recipes, whiles some cocktail recipes have
multiple names; the Daiquiri belongs to the latter and the former, while the
Bacardi Cocktail belongs simply to the latter. However, and this is where it
gets complicated, the Bacardi Cocktail may have originally been the same drink
as the Daiquiri. By Daiquiri, I mean the cuban rum, fresh lime juice and sugar
variety, without fruit or juice.

Lets look at what the Bacardi Cocktail and Daiquiri recipes are now, and then
I will attempt to reveal what they were, way back when they were first
concocted.

Daiquiri:

2 shots Cuban Rum (light),
1/2 shot Fresh Lime Juice,
1 bar spoon of Gomme syrup
(substitute: thick sugar syrup, 9:1 ratio; the same ratio as Giffards use
for their Gomme Syrup)

Bacardi Cocktail:

2 shots Bacardi Rum,
1/2 shot Fresh Lime Juice,
1 barspoon of Grenadine Syrup.

Now let us look at the history of the Bacardi Cocktail/ Daiquiri recipes, and
other items of interest:

Oakland Tribune, 13th November 1913.

Rum and Grenadine: "There's a new cocktail in town - a fresh importation
from New York. Take half a whisky glass of Porto Rican rum, add the juice of
half a lime and dash into it a squirt of grenadine; shake with ice. This was
introduced by Rhys Thomas..."

Now the above cocktail looks like a Bacardi Cocktail, but is called a "Rum and
Grenadine". Bear this in mind as I confuse things even further by looking into
Tom Bullocks' "Ideal Bartender" (1917) where he lists two Bacardi Cocktails;
pay particular attention to the first recipe:

"Ideal Bartender", by Tom Bullock (1917)

1. BACARDI COCKTAIL

Use a large Mixing glass. Fill with Lump Ice.

1/2 jigger Cusinier Grenadine.
1 jigger Bacardi Rum.

Shake well and serve in a Cocktail glass.

2. BACARDI COCKTAIL -- Country Club Style

Use a large Mixing glass. Fill with Lump Ice.

1/2 Lime Juice.
2 dashes Imported Grenadine.
1 jigger Bacardi Rum.

Shake well; strain into Cocktail glass and serve.

The first Bacardi Cocktail recipe that Tom Bullock lists could quite easily be
called "Rum and Grenadine", being as that is all it is. The Bullock "Rum and
Grenadine only, Bacardi Cocktail" is the first appearance of the Bacardi
Cocktail with Grenadine in it. (The 1913 reference wasn't called a Bacardi
Cocktail remember?)

Moving onto Bullock's second Bacardi Cocktail recipe, you see that it is
exactly same as the Bacardi Cocktail recipe which I listed at the beginning of
this article, but the problem is that Bullock's recipe is not the first
appearance of the specifically named "Bacardi Cocktail", that honour belongs
to Hugo Ensslin.

Note that Bullock's Recipe states that the second Bacardi Cocktail is, in
fact, "Country Club Style"; I will come back to this later in the article.

In the 1917 edition of his book, ""Recipes for Mixed Drinks", Hugo Ensslin has
a Bacardi Cocktail recipe. Now, instead of showing the recipe for Hugo
Ensslin's Bacardi Cocktail, I will instead list the "Cuban Cocktail" which was
featured in the previous edition of Ensslin's book (1916):

Cuban Cocktail

1 jigger Bacardi Rum
2 dashes Gum Syrup
Juice of 1/2 Lime

Shake well in a mixing glass with cracked ice, strain and serve.

The only difference between Ensslin's Cuban Cocktail, of 1916, and Ensslin's
Bacardi Cocktail of 1917 is that the Bacardi Cocktail is listed as requiring a
"drink of Bacardi Rum". A jigger, as specified in 1916, is 50ml, and a "drink"
is basically the same.

So what do contemporary sources from the U.S. and Cuba say about the Bacardi
Cocktail/ Daiquiri conundrum?

THE OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK, By Albert Stevens Crockett, 1935

"Out of compliment to Mr. Taylor, who was last resident manager of the Old
Waldorf-Astoria, is placed at the head of this list the distinctive cocktail
which at his hotel is also called a Daiquiri, or a Bacardi."

PORTS OF THE SUN: A GUIDE TO THE CARIBBEAN, BERMUDA, NASSAU, HAVANA AND
PANAMA, by Eleanor Early, 1937

by Eleanor Early

(HAVANA): "Hardly anyone knows how to mix a proper Bacardi cocktail, so I
asked Senor Rafael Valiente, who is host at the famous bar, and he told me
that you should take the juice of half a lime, half a teaspoon of granulated
sugar, one and a half ounces of white Bacardi, mix thoroughly, and shake well
with ice."

There are many other references to the Bacardi Cocktail being the same as a
Daiquiri. The biggest obstacle to the resolution of the Bacardi Cocktail/
Daiquiri Conundrum is that the Bacardi Rum Company now lists the Bacardi
Cocktail as containing Grenadine Syrup; however, this was not always the case.

In 1930, the Bacardi Company was producing a cocktail recipe booklet entitled
"BACARDI Algunos De Sus Muchos Usos" ("Bacardi and Its Many Uses"), which was
still being produced in 1937, at least.

BACARDI Algunos De Sus Muchos Usos, 1930

Bacardi Coctel (Daiquiri Bacardi)

El jugo de medio limon.
Media cucharada de azucar blanca
Una copita de Bacardi Carta Blanca.

Agitese con hielo picado y sirvase en vasos de coctel. Puede ser servido
colado o sin colar.

IMPORTANTE: No altere el orden de los ingredientes.

If you do not speak Spanish, then the 1937 English Language edition contains a
almost-verbatim translation of the 1930 recipe, the words that are missing are
"(Daiquiri Bacardi)":

Bacardi and Its Many Uses, 1937

Bacardi Cocktail

Correct recipe:

The juice of half a lime.
Half teaspoonful granulated sugar.
1 1/2 oz. of BACARDI White.

Mix thoroughly, then shake well in cracked ice. May be served strained or
unstrained. Important: Do not alter order ingredients [sic].

In the Bacardi Cocktail legal dispute of 1936, where the Bacardi Company
brought before the courts unscrupulous bar owners who dared to use rums other
than Bacardi in their Bacardi Cocktails, there is much mention of Grenadine
Syrup in the drinks recipe. The point of the Bacardi court action was not to
deduce the exact recipe to be used by all, but to make specific the rum to be
used in the Bacardi Cocktail recipe; the inclusion of Grenadine Syrup was not
an issue the Bacardi company were interested in. To highlight this point, I
will show you an advert which the Bacardi Company ran in 1941:

CATERER AND LIQUOR RETAILER, September 1941

YES...BACARDI COCKTAILS MUST BE MADE WITH BACARDI

Ruling of the N. Y. Supreme Court, April 28, 1936

The Recipe in Rhyme!

A LITTLE SOUR, (Juice of half a lime)
A LITTLE SWEET, (1/2 teaspoonful of sugar)
THE TROPIC SUN, (A jigger of BACARDI, White or Silver Label)
WITHOUT THE HEAT! (Ice and shake well)

It is the opinion of this author that the Bacardi Cocktail was a Bacardi
Daiquiri, to begin with at least. The addition of Grenadine Syrup to the
Bacardi Cocktail seems to be an entirely American peculiarity, and may have
started with the confusion over the "Rum and Grenadine" recipe of 1913 and the
Bacardi Cocktails of Tom Bullock (1917).

There are two reasons for a drink being called a "Bacardi Cocktail 1) It is a
Cocktail made with Bacardi, and 2) It is a branded Cocktail of the Bacardi
company. Tom Bullock's "Country Club Style" Bacardi Cocktail is admittedly an
improvement over the "Rum and Grenadine only, Bacardi Cocktail" he lists, but
it was not a cocktail of the Bacardi Company, just a cocktail made with
Bacardi.

I wonder what would have happened if Rhys Thomas (the inventor of the "Rum and
Grenadine" in 1913) had chosen a more original name for his rum cocktail,
would we still be having this Bacardi Cocktail/ Daiquiri conundrum, or would
they still be the same drink? Either way, the Bacardi Cocktail of today
contains Grenadine Syrup, and the Daiquiri does not.

Cheers!

George

Bartenders Book, by Jack Townsend and Tom Moore McBride, 1951

"During the Prohibition debacle, grenadine wormed its insidious way into the
Bacardi, much to the disgust of astute practitioners of the compounding art.
It was another attempt to disguise bum liquor with a lot of sweet'nin' and
color. Unfortunately, the grenadine practice is still common, and the Bacardi
Company's efforts to educate the public away from it have fallen upon deadened
palates. According to the expert testimony of the late Eddie Woelke, when
grenadine is added, the Bacardi becomes a Santiago"

I like to put an egg in mine. Scrambled. I call it the "Original Bacardi Daiquiri"

That's pretty impressive detective work. I think it's somewhat amazing that any drinks of the 1910s-1920s retained even a passing resemblance as time went on considering primitive communication and long distance. For instance, I can picture someone in a San Francisco bar being asked to make a "Bacardi Cocktail" that the customer had in Cuba and being told it was "sweet and tart." The bartender would do his best to come up with something the customer would like -- without the benefit of easily obtainable bartender guides, the Internet, etc.

That's why we have so many variations on mai tais, zombies, etc etc. Bartenders tried to supply the demand the best they could at the time.