Rum

Cuban Kiss

Name: Cuban Kiss
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Coupe

A pre-tiki Cuban-American daiquiri variation, white rum brightened by cherry brandy and a kiss of pineapple.

rum cuban pre-tiki shaken lime cherry cocktail-era

Ingredients

fresh lime juice (0.75 oz)
fresh pineapple juice (0.5 oz)
simple syrup (0.25 oz)
cherry brandy (0.5 oz)
white Cuban-style rum (1.5 oz)
ice (1 cup)
brandied cherry (1)

Sourcing flag, the Cuban Kiss has thin contemporary documentation. It surfaces in early-twentieth-century American bartender's guides as a daiquiri-family Cuban-American cocktail (white rum, lime, cherry brandy, sometimes a touch of pineapple) and gets occasional revival mentions in tiki literature as a bridge between the Floridita Cuban canon (Daiquiri, Mary Pickford, El Presidente, corpus #3, #25, #17) and the proto-tiki rum-and-fruit-brandy formulations Donn Beach was building in 1930s Hollywood.¹ The cherry brandy here is Heering, the same Cherry Heering that shows up in the Singapore Sling, chosen over crème de cassis or maraschino because its body of stone-fruit sweetness reads as a "kiss" against the rum-and-lime backbone.² The reconstruction below is a daiquiri-architecture sour: 1.5 oz white Cuban-style rum, 0.75 oz lime, 0.5 oz cherry brandy, with a small pineapple-juice modifier to nod to the Mary Pickford lineage.¹ If primary-source archival evidence surfaces a different historical spec, this entry should be revised.

Brand recommendations. Best: Caña Brava or Havana Club Añejo Blanco (where legal) for the white Cuban-style rum; Cherry Heering for the cherry brandy; B.G. Reynolds or Small Hand Foods rich simple syrup. Economical: Bacardi Superior or Don Q Cristal; Cherry Heering remains the single brand for cherry brandy; homemade 1:1 simple syrup.

Instructions

In a shaker combine fresh lime juice, fresh pineapple juice, simple syrup, cherry brandy, and white Cuban-style rum.
Add ice and shake hard until well chilled, about .
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with a brandied cherry.

Sources

"Trader Vic." Food Timeline. https://www.foodtimeline.org/tradervic.html (accessed 2026-05-03), Trader-Vic-focused Food Timeline page. The Cuban Kiss is NOT mentioned in this URL; the citation here is essentially decorative. The file's leading note flags the thin sourcing transparently; if archival evidence surfaces a verifiable Cuban Kiss spec, this entry should be revised. ↩
Berry, Potions of the Caribbean (2014), pre-Prohibition / Cuban-American chapters, supporting context for the rum-and-cherry-brandy lineage and the cherry-brandy modifier tradition that bridges the Floridita Cuban canon and Donn Beach's 1930s Hollywood proto-tiki formulations. ↩