Ribalaigua y Vert, Constante (1888–1952), the presiding genius of the Floridita bar in Havana, was the dean of Cuban bartenders and unquestionably the most influential mixologist of the twentieth century. As with most bartenders, the details of his early life and career are fragmentary and often contradictory. He was born in Lloret de Mar, near Barcelona, and moved to Havana with his family when he was still quite young. That much is certain. In 1935, Ribalaigua told Thomas Sugrue, an American journalist, that he attended the “English Academy” in Havana and that when he was sixteen his father, a bartender at the old Piña de Plata café at the corner of Obispo and Monserrate in the center of the city “asked him if he wished to learn barkeeping.” He did.
We don’t know where Ribalaigua began his career behind the bar. At some point between 1898 and 1907 the Piña de Plata was remodeled and renamed the Café Restaurant la Florida. Ribalaigua began working there in either 1912 or 1914 (accounts differ), staying on after the Sala Pareda family, also from Lloret de Mar, purchased the bar in 1918. (Miguel Boadas, a relative of the owners, worked alongside Ribalaigua until 1922.) See Boadas Bar. Over the next few years, as travel writer Basil Woon noted in 1928, “the bar … sprang into vogue.” Woon attributed this to “the remarkable talents of the head of the head barman, Constantino, a saturnine individual whose peculiar gift consists in his accurate, though seemingly casual, measurements of drinks.” By the mid-1930s, Ribalaigua was acknowledged by all—locals, tourists, eventually even his competitors—as the king of Cuban drink makers. In 1935, he bought the bar.
Ribalaigua was an unprepossessing man, quiet and reserved in his demeanor. Even though by the late 1930s he had attained wealth and a degree of international celebrity, he still donned the white jacket every morning and got behind the bar to mix drinks. He was a master of all of the traditional skills—accurate free pouring, stirring, shaking. See
Ribalaigua’s reputation was cemented as much by his creativity as by his skill. It was his practice, as he told Sugrue, to invent a new drink every day “as self discipline.” Among his lasting creations are the Daiquiri no. 3, alias “Hemingway Special,” with a spoonful each of maraschino and grapefruit juice; the Floridita; and, most likely, the El Presidente. See Daiquiri; Floridita; and El Presidente. His influence, however, extends far beyond his actual creations, or, for that matter, his celebrity clientele (besides Ernest Hemingway, who was a fixture at the bar, his regulars included everyone from Leopold Stokowski to Marlene Dietrich). As the leading ambassador, as it were, for the tropical drink, he set the bar high: his cocktails were elegant, subtle, balanced, and unfailingly delicious. Their focus on rum and fresh fruit juices proved enormously influential on the American tiki movement—indeed, Trader Vic studied his bar and his drinks closely. See tiki and Bergeron, Victor “Trader Vic”.
In 1950, ill health forced Ribalaigua to step out from behind the bar, although he continued to supervise his establishment, now remodeled yet again, with the traditional open arches closed up and air-conditioning installed. Two years later, he was dead. His heirs ran the bar until 1960, when it was nationalized. It is still open today.
Campoamor, Fernando. El Floridita de Hemingway. Havana: Cubaexport, n.d.
McCormick, Henry J. “No Foolin’.” Wisconsin State Journal, May 17, 1938, 17.
Ramírez-Rosell, Reinaldo. “Constante Ribalaigua, rey del Daiquiri.” Diario de la marina (Havana), December 7, 1952, 55.
[Ribalaigua, Constante]. Cocktails-Bar la Florida. Havana: [1939].
Sugrue, Thomas. “High Sun.” American Magazine, February 1935, 140.
By: David Wondrich
Constante Ribalaigua behind the bar at the Floridita, ca. 1935.
Courtesy of the Amargura Cultura Collection.
Constante Ribalaigua behind the bar at the Floridita, ca. 1935. Source: Courtesy of the Amargura Cultura Collection.