1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION Yz jigger of yellow Chartreuse. Personally we find the Chartreuse brings all the sweetening we need, and a squirt of charged water adds ,, a sparkle. A lovely thing indeed. AND NOW, MESSIEURS et MESDAMES, the ONE & 01\'LY TROPI– CAL DAIQUIRI We honestly believe that more people have boasted about the origin of this happy thought than any modern drink. We have had to smile quietly on at least 4 occasions; once overhearing 3 Cuban gentlemen who had never been out of Havana, 1 alleged German title on a West Indies Cruise, 1 Racquet Club Member on a fishing trip-why is it that so many German alleged titles and fancy club members seem to talk very loud and authoritatively ?-and 2 female frequenters of the New York Colony Club. All of these assorted folk either had helped invent this drink or had been like THAT with the ones who had in– vented it! The whole business is tommyrot, unless these persons knew.a cer– tain 2 officials of the Yankee-run Cuban mining firm taken over dur– ing the great war by Bethlehem Steel, and which operated in the mountains not too far out of Santiago de Cuba, where the firm of Bacardi y Cia., had, and has, its being. The invention was simple, as so many good things in life are simple, and right smack after the Span– ish-American war, too. In those days not 1 American in 10,000 had ever heard of Ron Bacardi, much less invented drinks with it. There was fever. Doctors still thought that a lot of yellowjack malaria cases came from drinking water and swamp mists. They couldn't turn off the swamp mists but they knew that diluted alcohol w~s a di~in~ectant against germs. So they put a little rum in. t.heir bmled dnnkmg water. This tasted pretty bad so some bright citizen squeezed a lime into the thing, and a little sugar to modify the acid. I~~ made from .d~stilled water took the tropical blood heat off th.e ili.ing. The 2 originators were my friend Harry E. Stout, now donn– ciled in Englewood, New Jersey, and a mining engineer associate, Mr. Jennings Cox. TIME: summer of i8g8. PLACE: Daiquiri, a

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