Ah, the daiquiri. Is there anyone not already familiar with it? This ubiquitous, low-rent, tramp stamp of a drink is the fallen woman in the adult beverage world.
But daiquiri, know this: though your name has become synonymous with spring break and overly loud girls' nights out, I know there is still the potential for goodness in you.
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When made properly, with good quality white rum and clear, sweetened lime juice, a daiquiri can hold its head high as a clean, bracing, respectable experience. Alas, no one makes them properly.
Larded with the heavy pulp of bananas, strawberries, peaches, mangoes, or the blended remains of whatever else was about to go bad at the fruit stall, the daiquiri becomes anything but clean and clear. So much sweetness will easily mask the low-grade, third squeezing, rind-bitter lime juice of the sort sold in 55-gallon drums.
Of course, as wretched as these fruit-derived slurries are, the are at least real. With the way most daiquiris are sold, the closest they get to real colors and flavors (however wretched) is if the guy at the chemical plant was drinking a smoothie while he mixed up his tanker cars of high fructose corn syrup, synthetic limonenes, carotenoids, and Red Dye No. 4.
And the rum. Good god, don't get me started on the rum! In a daiquiri of the common sort, it might as well be petroleum distillate. When you belly up to the bar on Bourbon Street and make a selection from the ranks of thirty frozen slushy dispensers, ranging from Frozen Banana Daiquiri to Frozen Mudslide to Frozen Sex On The Beach, do you really think they WANT you to taste the rum?
I know how to love you.
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This is one of my favorite drinks, but I like it better virgin than with the rum. I'm a sucker for a fruit smoothie with lots of ice.
ReplyDeleteI am with Chuck on this one.
ReplyDeleteDaiquiris are like hamburgers - delicious when made well, but very, very, very rarely made well.
ReplyDelete