Hotel Nacional Special
Adapted Recipe:
- 25ml blended lightly aged rum
- 20ml Jamaican rum (preferably S&C)
- 22.5ml fresh lime juice
- 10ml demerara syrup
- 15ml apricot liqueur
- 3-4 pineapple chunks
(original recipe calls for only 45ml blended lightly aged rum and 15ml syrup)
Muddle the pineapple in your shaker, add the other ingredients, shake on ice until sufficiently chilled, fine strain into a prechilled coupe, no garnish.
A really positive surprise, a fantastically fruity-light, extended Daiquiri! I make recipes, even when I'm sceptic about something, always first in the original ratio, but here I deviated a bit at the first try already and I think that suited it very well, so it doesn't get to sweet.
I split the rum with a higher proof Jamaican, which worked great with the rest. At the same time, I would also say a split instead of replacement is enough, it should still be an easy drinking daiquiri. In addition I left out 5ml syrup in the adapted recipe.
On the nose you get fresh pineapple, apricot, fresh sugar cane, ester notes, great freshness and lime zest. In the mouth a dream, pure fruity freshness, apricot-pineapple in a combo working so well as I've rarely experienced it with double-fruit drinks. A touch of bubblegum that results less from a high sweetness, but rather this special flavor combination, typical "tropical xy" energy drink / bubblegum mixture, nicely balanced with candied ginger, sugar cane juice, also passion fruit coming from the mixture of S&C rum with apricot.
It is one of those drinks, like the Higgin's (S&C OF), where the ingredients are really no magic stuff and even quite cheap, but because it is simply so good, I wouldn't be angry about a high price tag at a bar too.
Source: "Smuggler's Cove" - Martin & Rebecca Cate, p. 171
