The Mai Tai
Ingredients
60ml (2oz) dark rum
25ml (5/6oz) fresh lime juice
15ml (1/2oz) triple sec or curacao
10ml (1/4oz) orgeat syrup*
5-10ml (1/4oz) rich demerara sugar syrup**
Spent lime husk
Mint sprig to garnish
Equipment
A jigger
Shaker tins
A rocks glass (or something similar shaped and fun in the tiki spirit!)
A straw
Method
Squeeze your lime juice, and keep one of the half husks. In to your shaker tin add all of the ingredients except the mint- you don’t want minty flavour in the cocktail, just the aroma from the garnish. Similarly, some people like to add the lime husk in to the tin while shaking, but I feel that the smell of the oils from the garnish is enough. Fill your tin with ice, seal and shake as hard as you can.
I like to serve this drink as a ‘shake and dump’, that is with no strainers. It is a no fuss beach drink, after all!
Just pour the entire contents of your shaker tin in to your rocks glass, garnish to look like a tropical island, and enjoy!
Suggested Ingredients:
Rum: Trader Vic’s original Mai Tai, (not the more tourist friendly version he created in Hawaii) used Wray & Nephew 17yo Rum.Vic had to tweak the recipe a few times, as supplies of first Wray & Nephew 17yo then 15yo dried up. It is now impossible to recreate the original, but the main point, is that the rum should shine through so make sure you’re using something full flavoured (and that you like!). I’ve used Appleton’s Estate- it’s Jamaican like the original, and really robust. Some people like to blend rums, or even float a darker rum on top, for instance a molasses based rum like Gosling’s to make it really punchy. Personally I prefer to keep it simple and lighter, but definitely feel free to experiment until you find your sweet spot!
Orgeat is an almond based syrup used in a lot of tiki drinks- the nuttiness plays really nicely with rum and other tropical fruit flavours. You can make it, (link below) but it is a little fiddly. Monin is almost always a safe bet for syrups and widely available. In a pinch, you could also substitute in Amaretto- it’s one of those bottles everyone seems to have a random one of at the back of their cupboard, and this is a great use for it!
*A great homemade Orgeat recipe from Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/11/how-to-make-orgeat-recipe-almond-syrup-for-cocktails.html
Curacao and triple sec are really just different names for orange liqueur; differences are historical and stylistic, so it’s really more about going with a brand you like. As always, I’m going with my favourite, the zingy and quite dry Marionette Curacao, but Pierre Ferrand triple sec is a great option, or trusty Cointreau.
**Rich means that the syrup is made with 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, as opposed to the usual equal parts.
You may notice that, unusually, the ‘sweet’ elements of this drink add up to a little more than the ‘sour’ element, the lime juice. This is because if you are using good quality ingredients, the orgeat and curacao will both actually have a fairly dry finish, so the drink can be a little sweet and tropical up front but finishes really dry and refreshing. The demerara also adds another aspect to the drink, really supporting the rum rather than just being straight sugary sweetness. That said, you can definitely make this drink without it- just up the orgeat to 15ml and it will be a but nuttier!