El Presidente

Taste

Dry and bright orange from the curaçao leads, with a soft floral, honeyed note from the blanc vermouth underneath, gentler and less herbal than a standard dry vermouth would give you. The rum is more felt than tasted, a light backbone rather than the star. The barspoon of grenadine is barely there as sweetness, it's mainly doing colour work, giving the drink a faint blush. Silky texture from stirring, a dry, clean finish. Closer in spirit to a Martini than a Daiquiri despite the rum base.

Origin

El Presidente was born in Havana sometime in the early 1900s, and who exactly invented it is genuinely unsettled. Three names get put forward: that it was created for Cuban president Mario García Menocal, who the drink is presumably named after; that it was popularised by American bartender Eddie Woelke after he arrived to run the bar at the Sevilla Biltmore in 1919; or that it originated at La Florida, the bar later famous as El Floridita, under the legendary Constantino Ribalaigua Vert. The earliest known printed recipe, from John Escalante's 1915 Manual del Cantinero, is close to today's version but includes a dash of bitters that's since dropped out of the standard spec. Whoever actually mixed the first one, it became one of Prohibition-era Havana's signature exports to thirsty American tourists.