The Montana Daiquiri Celebrates Two Unsung Cuban Classics

The 1920s saw Cuba’s cocktail culture flourish. Spurred on by an influx of American visitors and bartenders fleeing the strictures of Prohibition, the country and its world-famous bars became a drinking destination. In 1924, the Club de Cantineros, a society of Cuban bartenders, was founded to provide training, advocate for fair wages and working conditions and collect the best drinks from the local cocktail scene. The recipes were turned into a 1930 book entitled Club de Cantineros de la República de Cuba: Manual Oficial.

A century later, when Lorenzo Antinori and Simone Caporale were creating the concept for their latest bar in Hong Kong, they leaned heavily on this history for inspiration. “Cuban cocktail history is so rich and has always had an influence on Simone’s and [my] upbringing as bartenders,” says Antinori. “We wanted to pay tribute to that.”

And pay tribute they have. Montana, the new bar, is named after a cocktail in the Club de Cantineros book, and the house Daiquiri mashes up two period recipes. The first, the Santa Marta Daiquiri, is a drink Antinori recalls encountering many years ago, first through an article by German bartender Joerg Meyer extolling its virtues, then at the American Bar at the Savoy, where it was featured on a special menu. The little-known Cuban classic was originally a simple Daiquiri variation made with a few drops of kirschwasser.