July 19th - National Daiquiri Day

Now here is a holiday that we can all fully get behind and celebrate properly. With the perfect mixture of sweet, sour and alcohol, the daiquiri has been a favorite of party goers and beach dwellers year round to give that tropical vacation feel to any party. With base ingredients of rum, lime juice, and sugar, the daiquiri can take on any fruity flavor your palate desires from the smooth strawberry daiquiri to the tangy banana daiquiri and can be served straight up or as a frozen mixture with crushed ice. The daiquiri is also one of the few beverages where it is acceptable to drink from a cocktail glass, so you can feel somewhat classy while you're sucking down your rum infused slurpee.

The daiquiri was said to have originated in Santiago, Cuba by Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer who just so happened to be in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and thought up the drink when he was looking to get a little blotto but found himself to have run out of gin. The drink stayed somewhat local to the Santiago area until in 1909 when Cox introduced the drink to Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a U.S. Navy medical officer who in turn introduced the sweet boozy delight to the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. The drinks popularity grew from there and was said to be the favorite drinks of President John F. Kennedy and famous writer Ernest Hemingway, who was later credited with thinking up the frozen variety of the daiquiri that is popular today. 

Today's celebration should be a pretty easy one for you. All you need to do is a mix up a batch of your favorite variety and imbibe fruitfully. Not sure which flavor you like the best? Then mix up a dozen or so batches and taste test until you figure out which one you enjoy the most. Either that or until you wake up in the front yard again. And if you don't drink alcohol you can even whip up a virgin daiquiri to celebrate along. Although if that's the case, you'd probably be better of just buying a water ice or slushee...

Make your very own daiquiri by following this simple recipe below.