Cuba Libre

2 oz. of rum
1/2 lime
Coca Cola
It is simple. Just squeeze the lime into a tall thin glass, drop it in the bottom and pour the rum over it--a golden richly flavored rum is preferred. Add ice and fill with Coca Cola. Stir. The lime in the bottom will add some bitterness to counterbalance the sweetnes of the soda. Was liberty bittersweet to the Cubans? Undoubtedly.

The drink was invented, it turns out, by a solider in Cuba, during the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. That was in 1900. "Cuba Libre!" was the rallying cry of the Cuban independence movement, a cause that was quite popular on this side of the Florida Straits. Sorta the "Free Tibet" of its day.
In the simplified form of Rum and Coca-Cola (hold the lime, unless you were able to get them), this was one of the chief fuels that kept the home fires burning (or intoxicated) during WWII. It helped that there was practically nothing else to drink. By 1944, all American distillers of any size had for a couple of years been forking 100 percent of their production over to Uncle Sam, and domestic stocks were dangerously low. Caribbean rum was about the only import plentiful enough to make up for that. The mixer situation wasn't much better. Sugar was rationed, and ginger ale was scarce. Not Coca-Cola, though. So while of the three rum based drinks I chronicle this week, this one is the least inventive and classic, but the most resourceful.