It’s Mai Tai Day!

Happy Mai Tai Day everyone! And today is the correct Mai Tai Day. Proof:

As I said in my first post,the Mai Tai was created in 1944 by Trader Vic. Here’s the story in his own words:

“I was at the service bar in my Oakland restaurant. I took down a bottle of 17-year old Jamaican J. Wray Nephew rum, added fresh lime, some Orange Curacao from Holland, a dash of Rock Candy syrup, and a dollop of French Orgeat, for its subtle flavor. A generous amount of shaved ice and a vigorous shaking by hand produced the marriage I was after. Half the lime shell went in for color, I stuck in a branch of fresh mint and gave two of them to Ham and Carrie Guild, friends from Tahiti, who were there that night. Carrie took on sip and said, “Mai Tai – Roa Ae”. In Tahitian this means “Out of this World – The Best”. Well, that was that. I named the drink “Mai Tai”.

The Mai Tai is probably the best known Tiki drink,and with good reason. It’s just plain delicious. Follow the original recipe,and you can’t go wrong:

An interesting thing about Mai Tais,is that despite being created in California,most people think of Hawaii. This is because of all the tourist bars in Hawaii which made their versions of the Mai Tai. Kevin Crossman,Mai Tai enthusiast and Tiki historian,wrote an excellent article on the subject on his blog,The Ultimate Mai Tai. From his article,we get a chart of Mai Tai recipes:

And here’s the one I tried:

Mix #54 1972 Royal Hawaiian Surf Room Mai Tai

1oz light rum
1oz dark rum
1oz Demerara rum
1oz orange juice
1oz pineapple juice
1/2oz lime juice
1/4oz lemon juice
1/4oz orange curacao
1/4oz orgeat
1/4oz simple syrup

Shake with ice and pour into double rocks glass.

Definitely a tourist drink. Lots of rum for punch,and very ‘tropical’ tasting. Surprising they used ten ingredients though,that’s gotta be tough to mix when there’s a rush at the bar. I think I’ll just stick to the original. Or Kevin’s custom blended version:

Mix #55 Ultimate Mai Tai

1oz Fresh Lime Juice
1/2oz Orgeat (Latitude 29)
1/4oz Demerara Syrup (BG Reynolds or Liber)
1/2oz Orange Curacao (Ferrand Dry Curacao or Clement Créole Shrubb)
1/2oz Appleton 12 Rum
1/2oz Smith & Cross Rum
1/2oz Plantation OFTD Rum
1/2oz Plantation Xaymaca Rum

Shake with ice and pour into double rocks glass.

This does make for a very nice Mai Tai.

Cheers folks!