Ernest Hemingway staring off-camera© Kurt Hutton/Getty Images

While Ernest Hemingway’s literary output is legendary, his love of alcoholic beverages is equally so. One drink, in particular, was said to have captivated the author so deeply that he enjoyed 16 of them in one sitting. While it’s often hard to separate myth from truth, especially when it comes to a towering figure like Hemingway, the consensus is that the writer absolutely adored daiquiris after sampling one at a bar in Havana, Cuba, albeit with a variation on the original recipe.

Spencer Tracy, Ernest and Mary Hemingway, and others at La Florida, Havana, Cuba, circa 1955. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

A classic daiquiri recipe features rum, lime juice, and sweetener (often simple syrup) plus a lime garnish. These ingredients are added to a shaker containing ice and then strained. It’s not to be confused with frozen daiquiris, which features the same ingredients but blended with ice. Classic daiquiris have a reputation for being sweet, which Hemingway reportedly wasn’t fond of. That led to a tweak of the ingredients typically included in the drink, which was dubbed Hemingway’s daiquiri or Papa Doble (as papa was a nickname often attributed to the author).