Mai Tai
Prep time:
Rum, lime, orange curaçao and orgeat, shaken and served over crushed ice. Trader Vic created it in Oakland in 1944, and the name comes from what a Tahitian friend of his exclaimed on tasting it: “maita’i roa ae”, roughly “the very best”. The pineapple-and-grenadine version served in so many hotels is something else.
Ingredients
- 1 oz of aged rum
- 1 oz de ron blanco
- 0.5 oz of orange curaçao
- 0.5 oz of orgeat (almond syrup)
- 0.5 oz of sugar syrup
- 1 oz of fresh lime juice
Preparation
- In a cocktail shaker with ice, shake all the ingredients.
- Strain into a tall glass filled with crushed ice.
- Optional: float a little dark rum on top.
Bartender’s notes
Can you make it without orgeat?
You can make a drink, but not a Mai Tai: the orgeat is half its personality. If you have none, the closest substitute is a plain almond syrup, which gives the sweetness and the almond even if it lacks the orange blossom. Amaretto works in a pinch, with two adjustments: cut back the sugar syrup, because amaretto is already sweet, and allow for the extra alcohol and the bitter apricot-kernel edge it brings. What you should not do is simply leave it out, because without it the drink is just a daiquiri with curaçao.
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