El Presidente
4.2 301 ratings
Ingredients
How to make
Serve in a coupe glass
Prepare
- 1 Select and pre-chill a COUPE GLASS.
- 2 Prepare garnish of orange zest twist.
Method
- 3 STIR all ingredients with ice.
- 4 FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
Garnish
- 5 EXPRESS orange zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.
Flavour profile
24.8% alc./vol. · 1.6 standard drinks · 188 calories
History
Rum and vermouth blend harmoniously in this subtle and delicately citrus-fresh cocktail. This El Presidente recipe incorporates elements from its numerous variations throughout the years. Using only bianco vermouth results in a drink that is too sweet for some palates, while using dry vermouth can make it too dry for others. Therefore, a 50:50 ratio of both vermouths has been adopted, improving the cocktail. The previous iteration of the El Presidente recipe included three types of vermouth: - 45ml (1½oz) Gold lightly aged light rum - 20ml (⅔oz) Dry vermouth - 15ml (½oz) Bianco vermouth - 10ml (⅓oz) Orange Curaçao liqueur - 5ml (⅙oz) Rosso (sweet) vermouth - 2.5ml (1⁄12oz) Grenadine (pomegranate) syrup
The creation of the Presidente is thought to have occurred in Havana, Cuba, around the mid-1910s. David Wondrich, in his 2015 book Imbibe! Updated and Revised, attributes this "Cubanized answer to the Manhattan" to Constantino Ribalaigua, described as "the head bartender at a little café just off the Parque Central in Havana." According to Wondrich, "Constante's claim is found in a 1937 article by Jack Cuddy, who interviewed him while he was in Havana." An early recipe for the Presidente was uncovered in Cuba's Biblioteca Nacional by French historian Fernando Castellon. It appeared in the 1915 book Manual del Cantinero, published in Havana by John B. Escalante. The cocktail's popularity in Cuba by the late 1910s is evidenced by a 1919 New York Evening Standard article that calls the Presidente a "favourite drink of the Cubans". Furthermore, Basil Woon, on page 40 of his 1928 book When it's cocktail time in Cuba, notes, "It is the aristocrat of cocktails and is the one preferred by the better class of Cuban". While many current Presidente recipes incorporate a splash of lime juice, this addition is absent from the 1915 Manual del Cantinero and other older versions, where vermouth balances the grenadine. In fact, David Embury, in his 1948 book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, discusses the Daiquiri and states, "If vermouth instead of citrus is used with the grenadine, the name is El Presidente." He then refers readers to page 158, where he writes, "The leading rum cocktail of the aromatic type is El Presidente. Gold label rum is somewhat more pleasing than white label when combined with vermouth and is therefore used in this and many other aromatic type cocktails". Embury suggests, "This recipe may be varied by adding 1 or 2 dashes of curaçao to each drink," and a small amount of curaçao is the initial ingredient listed in the Manual del Cantinero recipe, as translated from Spanish by Wondrich in Imbibe!.