April Drink of the Month - The Hemingway Daiquiri (and Candied Grapefruit Peels)

There's an old saying that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. Allow me to propose a modern twist on this which inspired this month's drink: when your future mother-in-law gives you grapefruits, make Hemingway Daiquiris (and candied grapefruit peel). I'm sure there are plenty of other things you could do with five pounds of grapefruit, but it seems to me that the most practical thing to do is to juice them and use that juice for cocktails. Six grapefruits produce about a quart of juice (and thanks to Zack's new juicer, all the juice went into the storage container, and not all over my floor), but they also produce a ton of "leftover" peel. What is an enterprising person to do with all this remnant?  One possibility would be to use the peel to flavor bitters. I actually made a grapefruit tincture last month (allow the peel of one grapefruit with the pith removed to steep in 4-5 oz of high proof neutral spirit and then strain and bottle - a drop or two of this add nice citrus-forward bitterness to overly sweet cocktails), so that was out the window. Instead, I decided to try to step up my garnish game and make candied grapefruit peels. Below you'll find recipes for both the drink and the garnish, but first a word on how the Hemingway originated:

Ernest Hemingway is well remembered for his contribution to English literature, but his contribution to the cocktail world is also quite extensive. He has been credited with inspiring many different drinks, including the Bloody Mary (perhaps named after his nagging wife), the classic Mojito, and more. His favorite drink was apparently a very dry martini, but the drink that is named after him owes its roots to Cuba rather than Paris. The Hemingway Daiquiri belongs in the daiquiri family, a drink named after an iron mine in Cuba made of rum, lime and sugar (or simple syrup). The daiquiri was first created in the early 1900s, but didn't gain popularity outside of Cuban and US Naval circles until the 1940s when wartime rations of traditional US liquors made rum (which was not subject to rationing) a popular cocktail ingredient. The Hemingway Daiquiri differs from the traditional daiquiri in that it replaces the sugar with grapefruit juice and a few drops of Maraschino liqueur. This was likely because Hemingway was diabetic, and thus took his drinks without sugar whenever possible. Hemingway liked his drinks big - his favorite Havana bar served this drink as the Papa Doble (Double), and each drink featured almost four ounces of rum. Hemingway was famous for throwing back six to sixteen of these a day, apparently with no ill effect. For our purposes, we will follow the somewhat slimmed down recipe from  the folks at NYC's Employees Only, which you will find below. They add a little bit of simple syrup to balance the flavors and go heavier on the Maraschino than Papa Ernest might have liked, but it is an excellent drink with a great balance of bitter and sweet and good, complex citrus notes.

In a cocktail shaker, combine:

1.75 ounces white rum (we used Bacardi in honor of Papa, Employees Only recommends 10 Cane)
0.75 ounces Maraschino liqueur (best & most common brand is Luxardo)
1 ounce fresh lime juice
0.75 ounce fresh grapefruit juice
0.25 ounces simple syrup

Shake over ice, strain and serve in a martini glass. The traditional garnish is a lime wheel, but we decided to add candied grapefruit peel instead. Read on below for the recipe.

Candied grapefruit peel mixes bitter and sweet into little bite size strips of sugary goodness. In order to make these treats, first cut your grapefruit in half and juice each half using a citrus juicer. Be careful not to damage or bruise the peel during this process. Then, cut each half-peel again, so that you have peel quarters. Strip and remaining flesh from the peel, taking care not to remove too much of the (bitter) white pith. Cut the quarter peel on the diagonal into long, 1/2 inch strips. Place the peel into a pot and cover with water. Allow the water to come to a full boil, then remove the pot from the heat and strain out the water. Return the grapefruit to the pot and cover again with water. You will repeat the boil, strain, cover process 3-4 times. The more cycles of boiling water you allow the grapefruit to go through, the sweeter the final product will be - boiling the peels helps remove some of the bittering agents in the peel and pith.

Once you've gone through enough boil/strain cycles for your taste, cover the peels with water for one final time. Add equal parts sugar to the water in order to make a syrup for the peels (for instance, in the batch I made last night, we used five grapefruit, about three cups of water to cover and three cups of sugar to make the syrup). Allow the peels to simmer in this syrup for approximately two hours. Let the mixture cool and then store in the refrigerator in the syrup. When you are ready to serve, drain the peels, toss them in sugar (I used turbinado sugar, as the large crystals add to the presentation), and allow them to dry on a rack for an hour and a half. Now they are ready to garnish your drink or can be eaten by themselves as a snack. Some individuals may choose to dip the peels in chocolate rather than toss them in sugar - since I am an unabashed chocolate hater, this will not be my route, but feel free to experiment on your own time.

Enjoy your Hemingway Daiquiri!