Perhaps it is not true that Wil P. Taylor carried on working as if nothing were happening while the hotel he managed was under fire. Nor can we say for certain that he invented the cocktail that would become synonymous with Havana’s Hotel Nacional de Cuba. But contemporary accounts and cocktail books lend credibility to both stories. In the early 1930s, Havana was a city of contradictions, and the sort of place where legends could easily take on lives of their own.
Havana During Prohibition
Opulence existed alongside poverty, revelry alongside violence. Prohibition in the United States had sent Americans south in search of freely flowing liquor, and celebrities crowded the waterfront, many gravitating toward the Nacional from the moment it opened on Dec. 30, 1930. At the same time, the authoritarian government of Gerardo Machado was using increasingly brutal measures to contain the social unrest sweeping Cuba. Those hoping for change soon got it, though hardly in democratic form. The Sergeants’ Revolt, led by Fulgencio Batista, ushered in another turbulent chapter, and the Hotel Nacional — where officers loyal to Machado had taken refuge — came under heavy fire.
The Success and Recipe of the Hotel Nacional Special
By then, Taylor had already made a name for himself, as had the drink attributed to him, possibly developed with fellow bartenders Eddie Woelke and Fred Kaufman. A few years later, Charles H. Baker praised the Hotel Nacional Special in The Gentleman’s Companion (1939), ranking it among the three great rum drinks alongside the Daiquiri and Santiago Julep. Baker also favored aged rum over white, arguing that a more assertive spirit was needed to hold its own against the fruit and liqueur.
Ingredients
- 45 ml Cuban rum
- 45 ml fresh pineapple juice
- Juice of half a lime
- 5 ml apricot liqueur
Method
Add all the ingredients to a shaker with crushed ice. Shake, then strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish
None
The article first appeared on Coqtail – for fine drinkers. Order your copy here
Photo by Emanuel Florentin x Coqtail, location The Doping, Milano – all rights reserved
