Hemingway Special
White rum, lime, grapefruit and maraschino, shaken — a drier, more bitter Daiquiri.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 3 min
- Strength
- 17.7% ABV
- Glassware
- Coupe glass
- Base
- rum
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- White rum50ml
- Fresh lime juice20ml
- Fresh grapefruit juice25ml
- Maraschino liqueur10ml
Garnish: Lime wheel
Method
- Chill a coupe glass.
- Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino to a shaker filled with ice.
- Shake hard for about 12 seconds.
- Strain into the chilled coupe and garnish with a lime wheel.
Compared with the IBA specification
The International Bartenders Association lists this drink among its Contemporary Classics. Its specification is a standard for training and competition — one reference, not the only right way to make the drink.
CocktailHQ
- 50ml white rum
- 20ml fresh lime juice
- 25ml fresh grapefruit juice
- 10ml maraschino liqueur
IBA
- 60 ml Rum
- 40 ml Grapefruit Juice
- 15 ml Maraschino Luxardo
- 15 ml Fresh Lime
IBA ingredients as published at iba-world.com, retrieved 29 October 2026.
Allergen information
None of this recipe's ingredients, as commonly made, is associated with the fourteen major allergens.
Products vary, and this describes ingredients rather than the bottles you use — check every label. It is not a guarantee that a drink is suitable for anyone with an allergy. How this is worked out
Your version
— private notes, kept on this device
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Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A large jar with a tight lid.
Glass and ice
No ice in the glass
Served up, the drink was chilled and diluted in the shaker or mixing glass and goes into a chilled glass without ice.
Over a large cube it stays cold longer, but keeps diluting — it becomes a different, slowly lengthening drink.
About 150ml once mixed
The recipe's coupe glass is typically 150–250ml.
- Workable:
- nick & nora glass, martini glass, champagne flute, rocks glass, wine glass
- Unsuitable:
- highball glass
Needs a glass of about 158–167ml brimful.
How this is worked out
- A drink with no ice needs a little of the glass left empty — about a tenth — so it can be carried without spilling and has room for aroma.
- Filled to the top with cubes or packed crushed ice, roughly half to three-fifths of a glass is left for the drink.
- A drink built in the glass dilutes from the ice already there, so its melt water is not added on top.
- One large cube takes up roughly 65–125ml, from a sphere to a 5cm cube.
- Glass capacities are brimful and vary by maker — your own glass, measured with water, is the figure to trust.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Maraschino Liqueur
There is no close replacement for maraschino's dry, nutty bitterness; without it the drink becomes a grapefruit Daiquiri, which needs 10ml syrup instead.
Make it better
- It is meant to be dry. If it is too sharp for you, add 5ml simple syrup rather than more maraschino, which would take over.
- Use fresh grapefruit: carton grapefruit juice is sweeter and flatter.
- Pink grapefruit gives a softer drink than white, which is more bitter.
- Chill the glass in the freezer for a few minutes beforehand — a warm glass takes the edge off a well-made drink fast.
- Shake hard for 12-15 seconds with plenty of ice — a proper shake chills and dilutes the drink in one step.
Rescue this drink
- Too sour
- Add 5ml simple syrup. The drink is built to be dry, not to be painful.
- Tastes of maraschino and little else
- Measure it: 10ml is the most this drink can carry.
- Flat and sweet
- Carton grapefruit juice. Squeeze it fresh.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A large jar with a tight lid.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 2 stable components days ahead and add fresh lime juice and fresh grapefruit juice when you pour.
Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.
- Fresh lime juice:
- Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
- Fresh grapefruit juice:
- Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
Make it lighter
As written, about 2.3 UK units at roughly 17.7% ABV once diluted. 3 of six ways to lighten it work for this recipe. Units are an estimate of what is in the glass, not advice about drinking.
A smaller serveSupportedabout 1.5 units, 17.7% ABV
Every measure at two-thirds. The balance is untouched because the proportions are; the only trade-off is a smaller drink — use a smaller glass so it doesn't look stingy.
- 33ml White Rum
- 13ml Lime Juice
- 17ml Grapefruit Juice
- 7ml Maraschino Liqueur
A longer serveSupportedsame 2.3 units, 11.8% ABV
Spirit, citrus and sugar topped with soda is how a sour becomes a Collins or a fizz — a well-trodden route. Note: the same alcohol in more liquid — weaker per sip, not fewer units.
- 50ml White Rum
- 20ml Lime Juice
- 25ml Grapefruit Juice
- 10ml Maraschino Liqueur
- 75ml Soda Water
Give it the spritz treatmentPossible, with a trade-offabout 1.2 units, 9.1% ABV
Sparkling wine for the spirit makes a lighter, French 75-like drink, but it loses the backbone that balanced the citrus — you may want less sugar. Add the fizz last, at the glass.
- 75ml Sparkling Wine
- 20ml Lime Juice
- 25ml Grapefruit Juice
- 10ml Maraschino Liqueur
Not recommended for this drink: reverse the ratio; split the base with a lower-strength modifier; replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle
- Reverse the ratio. There is no wine-strength modifier — vermouth, sherry or Lillet — to swap measures with.
- Split the base with a lower-strength modifier. The recipe has no wine-strength modifier to move measure into, and choosing one for it would be writing a new drink.
- Replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle. No bottle in this recipe has an alcohol-free counterpart in the catalogue, and we won't name one we haven't written up.
Or make something lighter by design: Virgin Daiquiri. All lighter drinks
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
dry, very sharp, very light — a sour-structured drink served straight up, no ice.
Dry
Dry → Sweet
Barely sweetened. The spirit and the acid are what you taste.
What drives it: Maraschino liqueur — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Very sharp
Soft → Sharp
Bracingly sour — the first sip is meant to wake you up.
What drives it: Fresh lime juice — supplies the acidity.
Gently bitter
Gentle → Bitter
Bitterness as structure — it stops the drink tasting like squash without being the point.
What drives it: Fresh grapefruit juice — provides the bitterness.
Very light
Light → Rich
Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.
What drives it: White rum — adds most of the weight.
Bold
Delicate → Bold
Bold. This drink is the loudest thing on the table.
What drives it: White rum — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- Citrus peelLeads
From Fresh lime juice, Fresh grapefruit juice, Lime wheel
- Caramel and molasses
From White rum
Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — open one for the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sour
- Likely cause
- Fresh lime juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
- What to change
- Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
- What that does
- Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight.
- The trade-off
- Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry instead. Small additions, tasting between each, are slower but cheaper than a rebuild.
It's too bitter
- Likely cause
- Fresh grapefruit juice is doing this deliberately, but bitterness also builds across a drink rather than announcing itself — the last mouthful is more bitter than the first even though nothing changed.
- What to change
- Lengthen it slightly, or add a small amount of sweetener. Do not add more of anything sour; acid sharpens bitterness rather than covering it.
- What that does
- The bitterness softens and the drink gets longer or rounder.
- The trade-off
- If you were hoping to keep it short and strong, this is the trade you are making — and sugar added to a bitter drink can make it taste cloying rather than balanced.
It tastes weak
- Likely cause
- Usually dilution rather than measurement: ice adds water as it chills the drink, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
- What to change
- Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
- What that does
- The drink gains definition without gaining sugar.
- The trade-off
- It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice — not everyone wants that.
It tastes harsh or hot
- Likely cause
- Almost always under-dilution. Shaking is how this drink gets its water — around 30% of the finished drink — and stopping early leaves alcohol heat that dilution would have rounded off.
- What to change
- Shake hard for the full time with plenty of ice; a short, gentle shake chills a little and dilutes even less.
- What that does
- The heat recedes, the drink tastes rounder, and flavours that were masked by alcohol come forward.
- The trade-off
- Dilution is a target, not a direction: past it the drink goes watery and loses concentration, which is harder to undo than harshness.
It's watery
- Likely cause
- Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
- What to change
- Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
- What that does
- More flavour concentration at the same temperature.
- The trade-off
- Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — the aim is the right amount of water, not the least.
It isn't cold enough
- Likely cause
- Served without ice, this drink is at its coldest the moment it leaves the shaker and warms from the first sip. A room-temperature glass takes a surprising amount of that cold straight back out.
- What to change
- Chill the coupe glass first — ten minutes in the freezer, or filled with ice and water while you mix — and strain the moment you stop shaking.
- What that does
- The drink stays in its best range for longer, and the first sip tastes the way it was balanced.
- The trade-off
- Very cold drinks smell of less, because aroma needs some warmth to leave the glass. A smaller serve that is finished cold beats a bigger one that is finished warm.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- This drink's aroma comes from citrus peel and caramel and molasses, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
- What to change
- Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
- What that does
- Aroma arrives before flavour does, so the whole drink reads as more intense without a single measure changing.
- The trade-off
- The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 4 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a drink this simple is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness.
- The trade-off
- Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one — and a better bottle costs more.
Each drink comes out different
- Likely cause
- With 4 measured components, a few millilitres' drift in each adds up, and a shaker loaded for four chills and dilutes differently from one made for one.
- What to change
- Measure every pour with a jigger, and shake no more than two drinks at a time. Pre-mix white rum, maraschino liqueur in a bottle beforehand so each round starts from the same base.
- What that does
- The fifth drink of the evening tastes like the first, at the same strength and balance.
- The trade-off
- Smaller batches mean more rounds of shaking or stirring; pre-mixing saves time but only for what keeps.
Something else wrong? Open this drink in the Recipe Doctor.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 1/5
- Sourness
- 4/5
- Bitterness
- 2/5
- Strength
- 3/5
- Fruitiness
- 3/5
- Freshness
- 4/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate only- Calories
- 150 kcal
- Sugar
- 6 g
- Carbohydrates
- 8 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.32
- US standard drinks
- 1.3
- ABV
- 17.7%
- Serving size
- 130 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~127 kcal from alcohol, ~23 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 113–188 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes white rum at 40% ABV, maraschino at 32% with about 35g sugar per 100ml, and about 25% dilution from shaking.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
IBA proportions
60ml rum, 40ml grapefruit, 15ml maraschino and 15ml lime.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A shaken build: a sour-structured rum-based drink, served straight up, no ice — light and lively in the mouth.
Sour-structured
Something sour and something sweet held in balance over a base — the structure behind the whole sour family and everything descended from it.
Base
White rum
Modifier
Fresh grapefruit juice
Sour element
Fresh lime juice
Sweet element
Maraschino liqueur
Drinks built this way are collected as the Sour family.
Technique
shaken
Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.
A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.
What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.
Everything about shaking →How the technique works →Dilution
During mixing, then strained
Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Coupe glass · 130ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 130ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Shaking whips air through the drink, giving a lighter, briefly frothy body that settles as it stands.
No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Drinking this with food: seafood, oysters and anything raw
On its recorded taste scores this drink meets the test for seafood, oysters and anything raw — the page explains the principle behind it rather than simply asserting the pairing.
Making good drinks at home
A good drink to learn on. The beginner path covers the four things that actually make a home cocktail disappointing.
Where this fits in a home bar
White Rum is bottle 8 in the order that unlocks the most drinks — buying it opens up 5 recipes beyond the ones before it.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Hemingway Special
Associated with El Floridita in Havana in the 1930s and its bartender Constante Ribalaigua, and with Ernest Hemingway, who drank there. Stories that it was made sugar-free because of his health are anecdotal.
The IBA spec is longer and more grapefruit-led (60/40/15/15). This uses a Daiquiri-like ratio with grapefruit as part of the acid.
Family
Sour2 parts spirit · 1 part citrus · 1 part sweetener — shaken, strained, served up or over ice.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Daiquiri
You may like this because it's part of the same sour family as the Hemingway Special.
- French 75French 75
You may like this because it shares a sour-forward profile with the Hemingway Special, but uses gin instead of rum.
- Gin RickeyGin Rickey
You may like this because it shares a sour-forward profile with the Hemingway Special, but uses gin instead of rum.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
How far a bottle goes
Drinks per bottle, which bottle runs out first, batching — and the cost, at your own prices.
Recipe confidence
The Floridita connection is well attested; the details of its creation are not.