Amaro Daiquiri
Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 23.6% ABV ∙
The Amaro Daiquiri is a shaken sour built on aged Caribbean rum, bittersweet amaro, fresh lime, and allspice liqueur, served up in a coupe. Rich rum warmth meets bitter-herbal amaro and a baking-spice lift from the allspice liqueur, with lime keeping the finish crisp rather than sweet.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: Caribbean aged rum 50 mlAmaro 15 mlLime juice 15 mlAllspice liqueur 5 ml
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Garnish with a lime wedge
Tips
- Shake hard for a full 12-15 seconds with cubed ice to achieve proper dilution and chill, since the amaro's sugars need extra aeration to integrate smoothly.
- Squeeze lime juice fresh right before shaking; bottled juice loses the brightness needed to balance the amaro and allspice liqueur's sweetness.
- Double strain through a fine mesh into the chilled coupe to remove ice shards and lime pulp, keeping the surface glossy.
- Measure the allspice liqueur carefully at just 5 ml, as its intense spice can easily overpower the rum and amaro if overpoured.
History
The Amaro Daiquiri is a modern twist on the Daiquiri, a cocktail historians widely credit to Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer working in Cuba around the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, who is said to have mixed local rum with lime juice and sugar when he ran out of gin for guests; some accounts push the date as early as 1896, and others note that William A. Chanler, who bought the nearby Santiago mines in 1902, may have helped carry the drink to New York clubs that same year. The drink took its name from Daiquiri, the Cuban mining town and beach near Santiago de Cuba where Cox was stationed. Decades later, American bartenders began reworking the classic formula by folding in amaro, replacing part of the sugar and simple spirit character with the bittersweet, herbal depth of an Italian-style amaro, turning the bright, sour highball-era sipper into a lower-proof, digestif-leaning variation. Several bars have been credited with popularizing this amaro-based reworking in the 2010s, including Sotto in Los Angeles and Billy Sunday in Chicago, though sources differ on which kitchen first served it under this name.
