The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess - The Mai Tai

The Mai Tai is one of the most well known cocktails from the "Tiki" era... Or is it? Chances are good that if you've ever had a Mai Tai, you haven't had it the way Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron intended it.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• beach
• cocktail
• cocktails
• exotic
• hess
• mai
• robert
• rum
• tai
• tiki
• trader
• vic

[regopit44]

Trader Vic is rolling in his grave

[rbh0869]

@pac167 The original Mai Tai called for 17-year old J. Wray & Nephew, a rum which very sadly is no longer available, and frankly I have yet to find a rum that I think is a valid substitute. It was an amazing product.

The recipe I use here doesn't "exactly" follow the original recipe for a few reasons. The original rum had a lot of character and I think needed the extra syrup, and by not requiring a premium rum, it makes it more likely folks will try it. BUT It WOULD be better with a better rum.

[pac167]

I agree that lot of recipes are wrong and are calling for pineapple juice, orange juice, grenadine, even for flavored rums. that's bullshit. it probably taste well, but how can you call that a mai tai? it's like adding orange juice to margarita!?!

but this is not quite right version as well, the right version calls just for premium rum, no light rum and no gold rum. you can replace premium rum with dark rum, but it's better to use premium rum.

and also some rock candy syrup.

[habacuk1985]

the ingredients are about right but the technique is not very good

[gpcproduction]

you are the most idiotic sonofabitch alive

[gammathetasbear]

i cant believe i found it! I FINALLY found out how to make a Mai Tai the right way

[MsMascaraNY]

until now I thought all mai tai cocktails had pineaple juice..an excellent demonstration!

[rbh0869]

Bleazzy, I can only imagine you are in reference to the recent re-publication of "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" by David Embury, which aside from writing an Introduction for it, I had nothing to do with it. The Publisher did have a problem with the printer using the wrong draft to print the first set of copies with, and this was fixed almost immediately. Not only are newer copies corrected, but it also makes the "misprint" copies a bit of a collectors item.

[Bleazzy2425]

agreed

[Bleazzy2425]

Hess bastardized the greatest cocktail novel ever written with an abundance of punctuation errors and a baffling amount of spelling errors. He deserves appreciation for making this book available to masses once more. But the lack of respect for Mr. Embury is inexcusable.