Varadero, Cuba - Daiquiri, a distinctive cocktail from El Floridita bar-restaurant, has won a space today at the 9th Varadero Gourmet Festival 2017, taking place in this western Cuban resort.

Daiquiri, prepared with white rum and lemon or lime juice, is also the name of a beach and an iron mine near Santiago de Cuba, experts say.

The cocktail was invented by an American mining engineer, Jennings Cox, who feared to serve rum to a few guests, added it lemon juice and sugar.

According to some tales, a mining Italian engineer who shared work with Cox, and Giacomo Pagliuchi, then captain of the Liberating Army, baptized this drink as Daiquiri. Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, during his stay in Havana, frequently drank Daiquiri at El Floridita, a reason why the phrase 'My Daiquiri in El Floridita' is well-known.

According to the organizers of the event, this is also an opportunity to promote Havana facilities such as El Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio, two emblematic tourism spaces in Cuba, which are celebrating in 2017 the 200th and 75th anniversaries of their existence, respectively.