Bacardi Cocktail
Recipe:
- 60ml unaged or lightly aged, blended white rum (originally Bacardi Superior)
- 25ml fresh lime juice
- 10ml homemade or craft-grenadine (e.g. Liber & Co)
- 7.5ml simple syrup
Shake everything with ice until sufficiently chilled. Fine strain into a prechilled coupe. No garnish needed (optional: dried lime wheel).
A very simple and self-explanatory drink, but with a very interesting history. There are two "Bacardi" cocktails, so to speak, which can easily be confused in historical sources without prior knowledge. In Cuba itself and later in Europe, the "Bacardi Cocktail" was simply a normal daiquiri, shaken with this particular brand of rum, of course.
In the USA, however, it began to be prepared with grenadine early on. Even before Prohibition, there were recipes for it, the earliest of which specifically mentions the name can be found in Jacques Straub's book "Drinks" from 1914. However, the drink probably existed in NYC years earlier. After Prohibition, which soon followed, it really took off and became one of the most popular drinks in the USA. It became so popular that the Bacardi rum it was named after was no longer used everywhere. As a result, in 1936 it became one of the very few drinks to receive a legal copyright thanks to Bacardi's efforts (think Dark n' Stormy and Gosling's).
So much for the story, there's little need to explain the taste. A nice, simple Daiquiri riff with the beautiful, red fruitiness of hopefully the highest quality grenadine, whether homemade or from Liber & Co. The secret of the drink is to find the perfect balance. Of course, this depends on the rum of choice and the grenadine. Sometimes you can find absurdly sweet recipes with equal parts grenadine and lime. Another secret is "less is more", as grenadine quickly overloads drinks, so a split with Simple Syrup is helpful. Above is my favorite variation with the Liber & Co. I like to use a blend of Plantation 3 Stars and Chairman's Reserve White Rum.
Source: "Drinks" (1914), Jacques Straub
