Behind Bars

National Daiquiri Day Is July 19: Here's Where to Sip

Specials and playful creations abound at Seattle's rum-centric bars.

By Stefan Milne July 18, 2017

Rumba web edit photo 15 t4tchh

Photo via Rumba. 

In Seattle, a daiquiri is a state of mind, something so tropical that it is innately transporting. Bartenders often speak of it in almost religious terms. A perfect drink. A pure cocktail. A transcendent experience. A holy trinity of ingredients: lime and water and sugar (fermented into rum and not).

So while pretty much every classic cocktail has its own dedicated day—and call them what you will, marketing ploy, excuse to drink, etc.—maybe the daiquiri is especially worthy of a little libational worship, especially in sunny mid-July. Here are a few ideal spots to sip tomorrow.

Rumba

Rumba is—more than anywhere—Seattle’s bastion of fermented sugars, sporting over 500 bottles. Unsurprisingly, they have seven daiquiri variations on their standard menu (eight if you count Ti Punch). And tomorrow they’ll be serving four classic variations—two shaken, two blended—at the happy hour $8 all night. They even did up their menu to mimic a 1935 edition from Floridita, the Havana daiquiri haven. 

Hotel Albatross

Tweaks on the classic formula abound at Ballard’s tiki-est joint. The Long Lost Albatross cocktail brings pineapple gomme and green Chartreuse to the mix. The Death's Hammer Daiquiri is spiced. The Airmail adds honey, bitters, and sparkles. Besides, anywhere that has the classic daiquiri as the very first cocktail on its list is a pretty safe bet. 

Navy Strength

Seattle’s newest tiki bar, from the notoriously perfectionistic owners of neighboring Rob Roy and No Anchor, will offer craft cocktails at less that craft prices tomorrow. Both classic daiquiris and the Navy Strength daiquiri (tweaked with an absinthe rinse, Banks 5 rum, and demerara sugar) are $8 all night.

Sun Liquor

Local rum is a misnomer, of course, since sugar doesn’t grow here. But that hasn’t stopped the Sun Liquor folks from distilling their own popular takes. It's also probably the only place in the city doing daiquiri flights, so you can compare the classic to the Hemingway to one spiked with orange curacao and OJ. 

Manolin

Hemingway can be used as rationalization to drink pretty much anything. Absinthe? Sure. Bottle of wine? Why not? But Manolin is named after a character from The Old Man and the Sea, and Papa’s birthday is July 21, so Manolin will run the drink that he’s perhaps best associated with—the Hemingway Daiquiri, bittered up with grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur—at the happy-hour price of $9 all night tomorrow.

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