As we’ve discussed before, salt can make a marked difference in the flavor profile of a drink. In his book Liquid Intelligence, Dave Arnold also discusses salt and how he adds it to any drink with coffee, chocolate or fruit to make the flavors pop. He recommends that the next time you make a daiquiri, that you split it and try one half with salt and one half without and that after tasting, you’ll never make it without salt again. Of course that’s a challenge that we as Booze Nerds couldn’t resist. 😉

Having tried several daiquiri recipes, our preferred one is the Milk & Honey. It’s not quite as sweet, with less simple syrup and lots of fresh lime juice.

• 2 oz rum (we used the 3 Howls aged rum because we typically prefer ours old fashioned)
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 3/4 oz simple syrup

Shake with ice. Strain into a glass. Enjoy!

Plain

• Nose: Lime, barrel wood, dried mango
• Palate: Sweet barrel wood, dried mango, fresh guava on the front. Then kapow! Sharp, bright lime on the mid-palate. Spicy wood on the finish. Coconut after taste.

1 Drop

• Palate: Very similar to no salt, extremely slight increase in bitterness.

2 Drops

• Palate: Pretty much identical to one drop.

3 Drops

• Palate: Slightly tarter and more bitter. Takes a bit of the perfume off of the lime.

5 Drops

• Palate: Noticeably tarter. Slightly more bitterness, much like three drops.

10-ish Drops

• Palate: More roundness to the mouth feel, but even tarter still. Tiny hint of salt, but you really wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t already know it was there. More bitterness than the others too, really getting some of the pithy bitter notes from the lime peel. Not necessarily unpleasant, but it noticeably changes the character of the drink.

To our palates, the unsalted version is a little bit brighter and sweeter, and overall our preferred Daiquiri still. Our take away is that if you’re serving a daiquiri that uses a sweeter recipe, the salt will definitely cut some of the sweetness, bring the lime flavors forward, and create a good balance. But if your daiquiri is already balanced more on the tart side, the salt can potentially push it in a direction that you may not like. Of course as we were finishing up this post we realized that maybe using the aged rum played a part in this so we may have to try it again with white rum. 😉 As always, try your own permutations and see what your favorite flavor profile is.