Summer, heat, sea… Stop! Looks like someone messed up. Outside the window +10 maximum, it rains for the fifth day in a row, the wind is walking on the legs. Brr … In such conditions, it’s just a kakavushka, well, maybe mulled wine or grog at worst. But we are optimists, right? We know that in a couple of days we will also lament at +40 in the shade and idolize those people who created conder, ice cubes and tiki cocktails. By the way, today’s article is dedicated to the latest invention of mankind, namely the numberwan tiki cocktail – the Mai Tai cocktail. Well, stock up on patience, burning rum, good mood, Hawaiian shirts and let’s go!
Cocktail recipe Mai Tai
We will definitely write about tiki cocktails in a separate article, because this is a whole era when even the harsh and restrained Savoy succumbed to the influence of a real social phenomenon at that time. However, in our time, figurines of Tiki (overseas gods) play an equally significant role in the bar industry. So, the Mai Tai cocktail is a classic, an unshakable classic that was included in the IBA collection back in 1987. This heavenly drink should be served in a wide highball, but ideally, your bar should have at least one glass in the form of a Tiki statue for this.
Ingredients:
- 40 ml white rum;
- 20 ml dark aged rum;
- 15 ml Orange Curacao liqueur;
- 15 ml almond syrup (Orgeat);
- 10 ml lime juice.
Preparation:
- pour all the ingredients into a shaker and add a lot of crushed ice;
- beat well and pour into a highball, after filling it with crushed ice;
- garnish with a slice of pineapple, lime and mint sprig;
- serve with a straw.
A bit of history to get the gist
Mai Tai was invented by Victor Bergeron, known in wide circles as Trader Vic. It happened back in 1944, when the most brutal and bloody war was raging in Europe. The world was changing rapidly. Later, Vic wrote: “I felt a general need for a new cocktail …”. It is not possible to recreate the original recipe of the drink today, since Bergeron used in his “know-how” the now deceased 17-year-old J. Wray Nephew rum.
I took fresh lime juice, added some orange Curaçao from Holland, a dash of caramel syrup, and some French Orgeat syrup, for its subtle almond flavor. All components were intensively shaken in a shaker with plenty of crushed ice and the cocktail was decorated with half a lime peel for color and a sprig of mint …
Victor Bergeron
For the first time, Vic’s friends, who had just arrived from Tahiti, Ham and Carrie Guild, tried the cocktail. After the first sip, Kerry exclaimed: “Mai Tai – Roa Ae”, which, translated from Tahitian, approximately meant – “This is the best thing in this world!”. So the cocktail got its name …
Mai Tai was originally conceived as a monumental classic, which can be safely equated with Mojito, Daiquiri or the legendary Martini. All these drinks are simple to disgrace in their execution, but at the same time they are inexhaustible in terms of improvement and experimentation. In addition, this is one of those few cocktails that allows you to appreciate a good aged rum, which, by the way, most bartenders for some reason forget to add to Mai Tai. Regrettable!
A few key points to understand
- Mai Tai – NOT red, NOT yellow, NOT blue, so that pseudo-mixologists do not prove to you there. There is no coconut rum, grenadine or pineapple juice in the cocktail – this is your direct path to artisanal Pina Colada. Mai Tai has a pleasant color from light brown to dark brown (due to the presence of a good aged dark rum).
- You can decorate Mai Tai with any available fruits and even flowers (some sources recommend decorating a cocktail with gardenia). Jeffrey Morgenthaler, who personally spoke with the creator of the drink, decorates his Mai Tai with a banal “flag” – an orange slice and a cherry.
- Undoubtedly, the central figure in Mai Tai is aged rum, which sets the main direction in taste. This is the charm of the drink – you can experiment endlessly with aged rums, but, alas, hardly anyone will be able to try the original version. Bergeron himself described 17-year-old J. Wray Nephew as having a deep golden color, medium body, and a rich, spicy aroma that is characteristic of all Jamaican rums (perhaps the legendary Myers’s & Sons rum may be ideal in this case).
- Syrup Orgeat, Orshad. This is an old syrup, a mixture of almond milk with sugar and orange water, sometimes rose water is used. In junk, barley grains (“orge” in French) were added to it, which explains the modern name. You can cook it yourself, but it’s better to buy under the Monin brand and not bathe.
- With Orange Curacao, things are a little more complicated. Trader himself used DeKuyper liqueur, but today’s analogues are too “chemical”. A more acceptable version of the production of Marie Brizzar. As a last resort, or rather for certain rums, you can use the available Cointreau.
In general, that’s all. The Mai Tai really deserves to be tasted at least once in a lifetime, and be sure to ask for the very best. By the way, today there are entire communities dedicated to the study of this cocktail and its preparation. Some have even devoted their whole lives to it… In our case, it is another “tropical” cocktail with pineapple juice, without heart and soul. Even Wiki could not really describe the legendary tiki drink, making a bunch of mistakes in the recipe and so on. World, no, universal sorrow …