Hilario Sanchez provides this entire list in his 1948 El Arte del Cantinero, including recipes for most:
1930
A Pie
Almendares
Aperital
Auto
Bacardí
Bacardí Old-Fashioned
Bacardí-Dubonnet
Bacardí-Vermouth (dulce)
Bacardí-Vermouth (seco)
Berry [probably actually “Barry”]
Bowman
Bowman-Bacardí
Caballito
Caffery
Café
Caledonia
Casiano
Casino
Chaparra
Chocolate
Colonial
Country Club
Cuba Libre
Cuban Blossom
Cuban Bronx
Cuban Clover Club
Cuban Coronation
Cuban Manhattan
Cuban Prince
Cuban Rose
Daiquirí
Delio Núñez
Dorothy Gish
El Mundo
Elíxir
Florida
Florida Special
Forestier
Granadine
Guggenheim
Habana Beach
Habana Special
Habana Yacht Club
Havana Opera
Ideal
Isle of Pines
Jai Alay
Jaimanitas
Largo
Llerandi
Lobo de Mar
Longines
Maragato
Mary Pickford
Mendieta
Mofuco
Mojito
Monjita
Méndez
Méndez Vigo
Nacional
Obispo
Ojén
Panchito
Paraíso
Perfecto
Playa
Plaza
Plus Café
Presidente
Remero Special
René Morales
Robin
Ron Punch
Santa Marta
Sevillana
Sloppy Joe’s
Tango
Tequila
Urruela
Vermouth Batido
Yacht Club
It’s a lot to wade through, and that list is hardly exhaustive, although it also includes some drinks where the connection to Cuba is unclear. His own book contains unusual and fascinating recipes that don’t make the list.
I’ve established this topic in anticipation of many things to discuss beneath the umbrella.
The Isle of Pines makes appearance here and there in English sources, generally as a Daiquiri made with grapefruit. I’ve seen it as early as in Cocktails by “Jimmy”, 1930.
I’ve also seen alleged recipes online veering off into all kinds of directions (adding vermouth), including complete insanity (peppermint schnapps).
The drink appears to originally be a Cuban drink referencing a Cuban island once known as the Isla de Pinos and currently named the Isla de Joventud. Here’s the recipe Sanchez offers in 1948:
1/4 grapefruit juice
1/4 maraschino liqueur
1/2 rum [presumably Cuban]
drops of triple sec
Shake/strain into cocktail glass rimmed with grapefruit juice and sugar
Most likely named for Pico Turquino, the highest point in Cuba.
What do you make of “drops” of triple sec here? I’m always a little perplexed when a relatively mild liqueur is deployed in tiny amount in old recipes. Usually it’s “dashes,” but can such a small amount really have a substantial effect on a cocktail with other assertive ingredients in larger quantities?
THis is an excellent start. I would promote the Presidente to the first rank, though, to reflect its very high popularity among Cubans, back in the Golden Age of Cuban mixology, and add the Airmail Special and the Green Fizz to that list, at least. The Hemingway Daiquiri should probably be edged in somehow, and the Banana Daiquiri as well (the Frozen Banana Daiquiri was a specialty of the Varadero Internacional hotel on Varadero Beach, east of Havana, which in the 1950s used to greet its guests with one).
Years ago I did a page by page comparison of Straub’s book and the 1930 Manual del Cantinero (the first official manual of the Club) since, as you may remember, they basically took Straub’s work and edited it.
The Cuban cantineros removed 19 recipes and added 60, 48 of which appeared in that book of the first time. Among the new ones, the Side Car and the South Side but most of the rest seems Cuban. There’s quite a bit of cross0ver with Sánchez “best of”.
I think the 1930 book provides quite a good picture of the state of Cuban bartending in the middle of its golden age.
In bold, the ones that appeared first in that volume (info might be out of date as this list was compiled in 2013)
Almendares Cocktail
A Pie Cocktail
Bowman Cocktail
Caballito Cocktail
Casino
Cattlin
Chaparra
Chic
Colonial
Cooperstown Cocktail
Cuban Manhattan
Daiquiri Frappé
Diana Cocktail
Doctor Cocktail
Dorothy Gish
Douglas Fairbanks
El Mundo Cocktail
Florida Special
Forestier Cocktail
Gloria Swanson
Grape fruit Blossom
Greta Garbo
Hal Stevens
Harry M Stevens
Havana Yacht Club
Honey Cocktail
Ideal
Jamainitas
Leap Frog (In Cantinero 1924, but different recipe)
I’m guessing the “Hal Stevens” and “Harry M. Stevens” cocktails are references to the ballpark concession king? I haven’t identified a personal connection to Cuba, but baseball and hot dogs are pretty far from my interest areas.
The only “Green Fizz” I’ve located is the “Green Fizz Cocktail” (in the 1929 Lasa… perhaps lightly fizzy from shaking, but evidently not an actual fizz). Was there a later phenomenon?
I have miscellaneous Airmail recipes, but I’m having trouble locating a Cuban recipe for the Airmail or Air Mail or Airmail Special. Not sure what I’m looking for.
Is there a specific Banana Daiquiri/Platano Daiquiri from the Varadero Hotel, or is it pretty much just a blender daiquiri with half a banana in it?
The Green Fizz is also in Sloppy Joe’s 1931-2 and the Floridita 1934. The Airmail Special is in the 1930-1936 [?] “Bacardi and Its Many Uses” booklet: juice of half a lime, teaspoonful honey, 1.5 oz Bacardi Gold, shake, strain into highball glass, top with champagne. I don’t have a recipe from the Varadero, but I strongly suspect it is as you indicate. I do see, however, that already in 1946 a certain Don Ramon, former bartender at the Miami branch of Monte Proser’s Beachcomber, won first prize at an NYC cocktail competition with his Banana Daiquiri, so I guess we can’t consider that a settled history. Sloppy Joe’s was serving them by 1951, anyway.
Ok, so Don Ramon was born Ramon Alejandro Ramsey Wolff Aboy, in Vieques, Puerto Rico; that was in 1887. He was in New York by around 1911, where he imported iron ore and apparently accumulated an impressive heap of spondulicks, which he all lost some time after World War I. In 1939, he was down in Florida, posing as Don Ramon, the “West Indies Rum King” at the Roadside Rest in Miami, where he mixed up his Grand Passion, Jealousy, L’Amour, Bit of Heaven, Hawaiian Dream and Miami Sunkist cocktails, among others. In 1940, though, he was back in New York, working as a liquor salesman for Julius Wile, the importers of, among other things, Lemon Hart rum and Ron Rey Puerto Rican rum. Then he was back in Florida, hosting and mixing drinks at one bar after another. In September, 1944, Peggy Simmonds, the night club columnist of the Miami News, found him with a new line of drinks:
This appears to be the earliest mention of the Banana Daiquiri, and there are a couple more almost as early associating him with the drink, which he made with Ron Rey. So I guess not a Cuban cocktail after all, but a Miami Puerto Rican one.
I will elaborate on this later but Canchanchara was historically a coffee substitute and only became a cocktail in the 70s 0r early 80s. Or so it seems.
I saw your earlier, illuminating post on the drink @francois (I had accepted the common story for a long time so it was an eye opener for me.) I’ve also read about it on Bar-Vademecum.
If the list is only for cocktails that originated in Cuba (or from a specific time period) then it most likely shouldn’t be included, but if it’s for cocktails that are associated with Cuba then it probably fits.
I have a hunch even Mr. Zimmermann is under-playing the molasses-honey connection. In an intensive sugar-production operation, even with distillation, nuisance byproducts will be lot more plentiful and accessible than bee honey.
I have a hunch this particular English-language pamphlet was written by the folks at Schenley. Would a Cuban recipe for the Mojito read “Same as the Bacardi Rickey with a little sugar and a few sprigs of mint”? [UPDATE: never mind, they did just that in one of the Spanish language pamphlets! Zoiks.]
The Coronation Cocktail seems to have been a thing in Cuba—it comes up again and again, and that same Bacardi booklet has the weird spread with four ostensibly related drinks on it.
Unless it’s well-hidden, that Rumba drink attributed to Craddock at the Savoy doesn’t seem to be in his book:
Right below that is the “May Morn” which seems to be a straight rip off of Ensslin’s “September Morn”. The long arm of Hugo?
This guy is sounding rather colorful! That quote also seems to indicate that the Daiquiri has, by this juncture (WW2), spun off its parallel family of random frozen flavored drinks with no remaining ties to Cantineros and their variations.
My bad–in the Bacardi booklet I have, in English, the drink is listed as the “Bacardi Airmail”; I suspect (at least in my brain) it became the “Airmail Special” through osmosis from the 1941 Benny Goodman/Charlie Christian hit of that name.
And yeah, Wolff really does seem to have been a character. He ping-ponged around South Florida bars like a farm-league Popo Galsini until at least the end of the 1940s, before returning to Puerto Rico where he died in 1955.
Man, Harry M. Stevens is a super interesting character. As a big fan of scoring baseball games I love his origin story. His popularization of the hot dog vendor is also pretty interesting.
Anyways doing some snooping it appears his son Hal Stevens represented his dad’s company in Florida primarily at Hialeah Park. Based on geographical closeness I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the main influence behind the naming of the cocktails in Cuba.
First two clippings from the 1920s and last is from 1940.
In other Harry M. Stevens drink related news it appears they were the producers of Mint Juleps at the Kentucky Derby for many years and they produced the collectable cups they came in.
In this article on them taking over concessions at the Kentucky Derby it also mentions that the company is associated with “Havana”. I’m assuming that means Cuba though I’m not certain as I guess it could be a name like “Jamaica” which I imagine refers to the track in Queens.
Harry M. Stevens seems to often be credited as the creator of the drink though I think that’s likely a mistake since he was long dead before it was announced. In theory it could have been a relative with the same name, but I think the company’s name of “Harry M. Stevens Co.” is responsible for the confusion.
