No Mystery About the Appeal of the Daiquiri, Even if a Certain 'Hemmingway' Remains Murky

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Daiguiris at the Floridita bar in Havana, a Hemingway -- er, Hemmingway -- favorite.

​Lately we've seen the Hemmingway Daiquiri misspelled exactly that way, with two "m"s, at three different bars in three different cities. Why? Did someone screw up the author's moniker at some point and create a sort of illiterate chain reaction? Is the drink named after another Hemingway who also lived in Cuba and liked to booze it up?

We asked Peter Snyderman, who not only owns and operates Trademark (56 Belden Place at Bush -- one of the aforementioned double-m watering holes), he spent a year studying the Nobel laureate's extensive oeuvre at San Francisco State. He had no idea. We also consulted the Internet, which was, as usual, no help whatsoever. But our tattered copy of Charles Schumann's Tropical Bar Book was good enough to reprint the Hemingway short story "Daiquiris" along with recipes for this classic cocktail in 13 variations.

The original (2 ounces white rum, 2 teaspoons sugar, and the juice of half a lime, shaken with ice and served up) dates back to the 1890s and is still good, if a bit on the sweet side. Papa himself added maraschino liqueur and skipped the sugar -- the result is a wonderfully crisp and elegant cocktail. Try the exemplar at Trademark, and if Snyderman's manning the bar you can deconstruct "Big Two-Hearted River" while you sip.