Name: Cuban Liberal
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 45 ml Light gold rum 1-3yo; 30 ml Rosso/sweet vermouth; 2.5 ml Amer Picon; 2 dash Orange bitters

Cuban Liberal
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Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Light gold rum (1-3 year old molasses column)
1 oz	Strucchi Rosso Vermouth
¹⁄₁₂ oz	Amer Picon
2 dash	Orange Bitters by Angostura

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
Prepare garnish of orange zest twist.
STIR all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
EXPRESS orange zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Rosso/rouge/sweet vermouth (di Torino) - Sulphur Dioxide/Sulphites

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Cocktail of the day:

9th October 2025 is Anniversary of Che Guevara's death

Review:

Light white rum mellowed by Italian vermouth and made interesting with bittersweet French Amer Picon liqueur.

View readers' comments

Variant:

Liberal

History:

Adapted from a drink featured in the La Florida (El Floridita) Cocktails book, this is a riff on El Presidente.

Nutrition:

One serving of Cuban Liberal contains 151 calories

Alcohol content:

1.3 standard drinks
23.69% alc./vol. (23.69° proof)
18.5 grams of pure alcohol

More Aperitivo/aperitif cocktails
More Bittersweet (e.g. Negroni) cocktails
More Classic/vintage cocktails

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Mel McMahon

28th June at 05:48

Looking forward to trying this. Interested to know why the recipe says to fine strain the stirred mix, as I thought this was reserved for shaken drinks.

John Hinojos

3rd May 2024 at 00:38

Delightful aperitif. Perfectly balanced. Not as sweet as I was expecting. Used a good Barbados gold rum.

Christina Bickley

9th October 2022 at 00:28

Nicely balanced. Did have Amir Picon. Substituted 1/4 oz Campari and 1/4 oz of a orange liquor we had.

James Pratt

9th July 2022 at 17:26

This is pretty similar to the Liberal Cocktail in Jacques Straub’s Manual of Mixed Drinks (1913), albeit that is made with rye whiskey rather than rum.

Simon Difford

10th July 2022 at 21:40

Many thanks for the heads-up, James. I've added the Liberal to Difford's Guide with a link to the page in "variant" above.

Bill Lennox

5th November 2021 at 19:58

A fairly simple tasting drink. Rum and orange dominate. I would increase the Amer Picon to add a bit more interest and use classic Angostura bitters to temper the orange. Very easy to drink though!

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