HAVANA, July 27 — Cuban and American bartenders compete in a Havana cemetery to become the Daiquiri King, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the cocktail bar and favourite hangout of writer Ernest Hemingway on the island.

“It’s an amazing event. It’s very huge for any bar tender anywhere in the world to be able to be here with the person who immortalized it and makes it one of the most famous cocktails in the whole world. And we do this amazing ceremony for him and it’s a great pleasure for me to be part of it,” said US bartender Christian Delpech.

“Both of my parents are from Cuba, so this gives me an opportunity to reconnect with the Cuban culture. I’m the first family member to come back to Cuba since they first left,” said Ricky Gomez, another bartender from the US. Jose Malin, president of the Cuban bartender association said the famous US prohibition era was a disaster for the United States, but in Cuba it led to the boom of the cocktail industry.

“We began to know about new things with them, and they learned from us. We were at the forefront (of the cocktail industry) in the 40s and 50s with great classic cocktails”. — AFP-Relaxnews