Daiquirí con hielo mexicano.

DINING & WINE

Chapter 1: I Drank the Water By FRANCISCO GOLDMAN Published: June 27, 2007

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times Frozen daiquiri.

IN Mexico City, where I live sometimes, I have a routine. I get out of the gym at about 9:30 and walk across the park to my favorite cantina, where the waiters know to bring me a shot of Herradura blanco tequila and a Victoria beer immediately. I love tequila and I believe that Herradura blanco, fiery and peppery, those first sips going down with the combustion of a space shuttle liftoff, is the great commercial tequila. I like mezcal too. Nothing macho about it: I just like the clean cactus and earth flavors, the warm ebullient high, and that you can drink a number of shots without feeling bloated. I don't often drink frozen drinks. How many of those can a person actually drink in a long night? But one night in Mexico City six years ago I drank frozen daiquiris, and I will never forget it, or at least I will never forget one of those drinks, the last one. It was at a party in the writer Mario Bellatin's house: crowded kitchen, someone manning the blender, bags of purified ice like the ones you get at gasoline stations. Slushy daiquiris in clear plastic cups, an appealing light lime color suggesting late afternoon drinks at the beach, when the salty bracing tartness of Mexican limes is especially delicious. I had one daiquiri and then another. Then they ran out of ice. Some of us were standing there, holding out empty cups. What, no more? There was still rum, there were still limes. But the blender guy was reaching deep into the freezer, struggling to dislodge an old ice cube tray, buried in furry ice. Enough for a few more daiquiris. Half an hour after drinking mine I felt a mule kick inside my stomach. Then I felt cold. I went home. For the next two days I shivered and thrashed around in bed, burning with fever. A mesmerizing sensation of physically dwindling away. I hallucinated a strange scene, or dreamed one with my eyes open: convent servants searching the dawn streets of 19th-century Guatemala City for just the right Indian man to bring back to their Mother Superior. I'd been waiting all summer for book and archival research to come alive. Suddenly, it had. I got out of bed, wrote it all down, went back to bed. Another scene came to me. That's how I finally began that novel. Thanks to a daiquiri and bad Mexico City ice. Related Recipe: Frozen Daiquiri Adapted from "The Craft of the Cocktail" by Dale DeGroff (Clarkson Potter, 2002) Time: 15 minutes 1 1/2 ounces white rum 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur 1 ounce fresh grapefruit juice 1 1/2 ounces superfine sugar 1 ounce fresh lime juice. In a blender, combine all ingredients with about a cup of ice. Blend to create a firm but slushy consistency, adding ice if necessary. Drink should be pourable, but should also hold its shape. Mound slush into a cocktail glass or a wineglass. Serve with a straw that has been trimmed to stick up above slush by about four inches. Yield: 1 cocktail .

More on Drinks for Memories.... Drinks for Memories Iced Coffee ?, no sweat. Forbidden Pleasure in the Desert The Cherries of Persia A Taste of Freedom For a Future That's Always Rosy Dry Dock It's Not

Copyright by the New York Times 2007