Daiquiri De Luxe

David Embury named the Daiquiri as one of his six basic drinks in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948), and alongside his standard 8:2:1 rum-lime-sugar formula he noted a richer variation: swap the sugar for orgeat or crème d'ananas, and split the citrus between lemon and lime rather than lime alone. The Daiquiri De Luxe is that footnote built out into a full recipe — Difford's Guide's modern version keeps Embury's lemon-and-lime split but layers in both orgeat and a modern pineapple liqueur rather than making a single either/or choice the way Embury's text does.

Embury's Other Daiquiri

Embury's Daiquiri chapter is built around a strict 8:2:1 ratio — 8 parts white Cuban rum, 2 parts citrus, 1 part sugar — but he was famously against treating any of his ratios as gospel, and he floats a dressier variation using orgeat or crème d'ananas in place of plain sugar syrup, with the citrus made from a blend of lemon and lime rather than lime alone. That's a genuinely documented historical formula, not an invented one; it shows up consistently in independent write-ups of Embury's book, not just on Difford's site.

One honest caveat: what's less clear from the sources available is whether Embury himself used the exact title "Daiquiri De Luxe" in his text, or whether that name was applied later — by Difford's Guide or another writer — to describe his orgeat/crème d'ananas variation. The ratio and the ingredient swap are Embury's; the specific name attached to it here should be read as a later label for his idea, not a confirmed direct quote from the 1948 book.

The Spec

This build follows Difford's Guide's version: light, charcoal-filtered white rum, a modern pineapple liqueur standing in for Embury's crème d'ananas, a lemon-and-lime citrus split in roughly the ratio his text describes, and orgeat for the almond sweetness — added on top of the pineapple liqueur rather than instead of it, which is Difford's own choice, not Embury's.

Orgeat and pineapple liqueur, not orgeat or pineapple liqueur

Embury's text offers orgeat or crème d'ananas as alternatives — pick one. Difford's build uses both a pineapple liqueur and orgeat together, which is a real departure from the original either/or framing. It works because the pineapple liqueur is used sparingly, at half an ounce, so it reads as a fruit accent rather than the drink's main sweetener; the orgeat is still doing most of that work.

Two citruses, not one

A standard Daiquiri runs on lime alone. Embury's variation already called for a lemon-and-lime blend, and this build keeps that split at roughly two parts lime to one part lemon — enough lemon to soften the lime's edge without losing the drink's citrus snap.

Bottom Line

This isn't a lost classic — it's a documented footnote from a foundational cocktail book, expanded into a full recipe by a modern guide. Judge it as what it is: a legitimately old idea (richer sweetener, split citrus) dressed in a modern ingredient (pineapple liqueur) that Embury never had on his own shelf.

The Daiquiri Family