Hemingway and rum: Bodeguita del Medio and Floridita

Hemingway e he rum

Let's face it, everyone likes Rum. Anyone who is a lover of it will have wondered at least once, while sipping it slowly enjoying its flavor, where does the rum come from. This alcoholic drink is born from the distillation of the fermented juice of sugar cane, which creates a sweet and thick, brown liquid, called molasses. Its origin dates back to a sort of ancient liqueur that the Arabs produced during their dominations in Spain, particularly in the Granada region.

Over the years, the first to start distilling Rum on a large scale were the English and French settlers on the islands of the Antilles and Barbados starting from the mid 1600s. Starting then, from the second half of the 600s, Rum began to be exported to Europe as well and became part of everyday life. Nowadays, the Rum par excellence is the Cuban rum; is so well known that the famous writer and journalist from the United States Ernest Miller Hemingway he also wrote extensively on this subject.

In particular, Ernest Hemingway wrote a lot about his travels and all the new cocktails he tasted around the world. One of his favorite places, and therefore he visited most often was Havana, in Cuba. He went there so often that he had earned the nickname “Pope” in Havana and frequented the most famous clubs in the city. Most likely, Ernest Miller Hemingway tasted his first cocktail Daiquiri, in the famous local La Floridita and his first Mojito cocktail, in the equally famous local La Bodeguita del Medio.

It is said that when he tried his first Daiquiri alla Floridita he commented saying that he would have preferred his cocktail with the double the rum and much less sugar, earning him the nickname “Papa Doble”. It is also said that Ernest Hemingway loved the Daiquiri cocktail so much that he was able to drink even 17 in a row, right one after the other.

La Floridita later created, in her honor, Il cocktail Papa Doble, which over the years, they have developed, adding maraschino and grapefruit: now it is called cocktail Daiquiri special Hemingway. As for the local de la Bodeguita del Medio, Ernest Miller Hemingway believed that only there you could drink what he called a real Mojito. Hemingway loved Cuba, Havana, Daiquiri and Mojito so much that he wrote the famous phrase: “Mi Mojito en la Bodeguita, Mi Daiquiri en el Floridita”.

The translated phrase literally means: my Mojito in Bodeguita, my Daiquiri in Floridita; he loved these two places and these two cocktails to such an extent that he felt the need to put it in writing. In conclusion, the Rum is truly a fantastic and very versatile liqueurin fact, with the latter you can really prepare infinite combinations of flavors, to create delicious cocktails; a good rum is also perfect to be drunk alone, in the right glass, and to be able to enjoy it in full, the first intense and immediately after, sweet flavor.

It is advisable for anyone who is starting to approach and is, consequently, starting to appreciate alcohol and tasty mondo del Rum, to find out about the different varieties of product that exist, coming from all over the world (it is produced in particular in the hot countries of the planet), about the many varieties of Rum-based cocktails that may exist, about how to taste it correctly (so as to be able to savor its true essence) and how it is possible to recognize a rum that is defined as high quality.