Mai Tai

The Mai Tai is one of the great and enduring drinks from the heyday of the tiki culture. The tiki craze started after the lifting of Prohibition. At the time, rum was cheap and plentiful, and two entrepreneurs, first Donn Beach and then Trader Vic (Victor Bergeron) opened bars and restaurants with Polynesian-inspired themes. In these establishments, exotic rum-and-fruit based concoctions were created and enjoyed. The craze was further propelled in the 1940s when soldiers returned from fighting in the Pacific, and in the 1950s when Hawaii gained statehood. By the 1970s, the craze petered out, being seen as tacky and unauthentic. But now tiki culture, just as in the case of classic cocktails, is experiencing a revival.

The Mai Tai is a misunderstood drink. It's often thought of as an exotic red concoction with several fruit juices, such as pineapple and orange juice. But the only fruit juice in a true Mai Tai is lime juice. It's not even garnished with fruit: the proper garnish is a sprig of mint. And it's not red! Please! Trader Vic would spin in his gra... I mean in his columbarium niche at Mountain View Cemetery. A properly made Mai Tai has an amber-yellow color.

The Mai Tai was invented by Trader Vic in his restaurant in Oakland, California, in 1944. He threw together a special rum drink for friends who were visiting from Tahiti, and when one of them tasted it, she said "Maita'i roa a'e!", which means "Very good!" So Vic called it the Mai Tai.

Here's the authentic recipe:

2 oz. aged Jamaican rum
1 oz. fresh lime juice
1/2 oz. DeKuyper orange curacao
1/2 oz. orgeat (an almond syrup)
1/4 oz. sugar syrup

Shake the ingredients, and strain into a double rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Add a half lime shell (it's supposed to look like an island), garnish with a mint sprig or two, and add a straw. Then smile!




Delicious!