 Back at the wall, today I'm talking Curacao, the lovely sweet orange liqueur that pops up in so many classic cocktails. What you might not know is that Curacao originates from a particular place. Any guesses what it's called? Yes, Curacao comes from Curacao, a small island 40 miles north of Venezuela. You may be familiar with it from this bottle. Well, Bulls is a Dutch brand, and guess who took Curacao from the Spanish in 1634? The Spanish having taken it from the airwack in 1499. Yeah, when I started looking into it, the history of Curacao was pretty depressing. So how is it different from other orange liqueurs? Curacao is made from lahara, an inedible bitter orange native to the island, which is a descendant of the civil orange. Its exact origins are disputed, but two companies claim to have invented it. Our friend Bulls and this guy, which Audrey got from me in Curacao, but is also available in the States. This is actually a very cool product. It's one of the few made entirely from lahara, and the company is based in Curacao. It's also made by hand in the family's 100-year-old copper still. Let's try it. Smells really orangy. Just pops with orange flavor. This is a lot sweeter than other orange liqueurs you've had, but it tastes great. If you're wondering if this can be plugged into any recipe that calls for orange liqueur, the answer is, maybe. If a recipe calls for Quantre or Grand Marnier, my recommendation is to use those if you have them. There are slight variations in all these products' flavor profiles, and in my opinion, they shouldn't be used interchangeably, unless the recipe calls for triple sec, in which case use whatever you have. The last thing I'm going to say is that in a perfect world, Curacao would have the global cloud to dictate that only Curacao that comes from Curacao can be called Curacao, in the same way that cognac and champagne can only come from their respective regions in France. But sadly, that's not the world we live in. The best any of us can do is support brands with historical provenance, like this one. Yeah, this is great. I don't know about you, but when I think of Curacao, I think of the Mai Tai. Everyone has heard of the Mai Tai, so I'm not going to go too deep into its history, but for the uninitiated, the drink was invented in 1944 by Vic Bergeron, the genius behind Trader Vic's. Although it may have been inspired by the QB Cooler, which was invented by Don Beach, the genius behind Don the Beach Comers. The story is Trader Vic had a QB Cooler, and the Mai Tai is his attempt to replicate the flavor profile since Don Beach and Trader Vic, for that matter, kept his recipe secret. Now if you order a Mai Tai at 100 bars, you'll get a different drink at every one. There are a million ways to interpret this drink and as many ways to mess it up. Also, very quickly, 5 minutes of internet research will tell you that pineapple and granadine don't go into Mai Tai. So, just don't. The drink is actually pretty simple. Orange Curacao, Orjot, Rock Candy Syrup, Lime Juice, and Rum. Orjot is syrup made from almonds. There are plenty of good ones out there, but only buy one if you can pronounce all the ingredients. Rock Candy Syrup is kind of a long story, but a good substitute is 2-1 Simple Syrup. You can use 1-1, but the drink will be inferior. Trust me on this. But the biggest challenge to making a killer Mai Tai is what rum to use. It was originally conceived using J-Ray 17, but the drink was so popular that Trader Vic exhausted the world's supply a long time ago. How you approximate the flavor of this extinct rum will have the biggest impact on how good your drink is. This may shock you. I've never had J-Ray 17, but this is the perfect time to stand on the shoulders of giants. In this case, the one and only Jeff Berry, who kick-started the modern Tiki revival with a string of great books. His books aren't the only ones worth reading. I love you. But they're a great place to start. He's a hell of a nice guy too. Now back to the drink. To approximate the flavor of J-Ray 17, Beach Bum Berry recommends a split base of a dark Jamaican and an aged rum agricole. If you don't know any of those words, he means a Jamaican rum that's dark in color, like Myers, which you've probably seen, and an aged rum from Martinique, also called Rum Agricole. Rum Agricole is a whole other topic. All I'm going to say is thanks to loose labeling laws here in the States, the term agricole gets thrown around quite a bit. For this drink, you want a proper rum agricole, and those are made with cane juice rather than molasses, and they're only made in Martinique. I've played around with this combination using a lot of different brands, and most are quite satisfactory. But today I'm trying a new one. For agricole, I'm using Clamont's Select Barrel. This stuff is spectacular on its own, but this is the first time I'll be mixing it. Personally, I think Myers is okay, but I think this drink deserves better. Besides, the term dark Jamaican is a little vague. Thankfully, I have something I think will be perfect here. My good friends stole an overproof. Here's how I make the drink. Start with one ounce each of your Jamaican and your aged agricole. Add three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, one half orange curacao, and one quarter each of orjot and two to one simple. Shake with plenty of ice and dump into a rocks glass. Sink your spent lime half into the drink and garnish with a few sprigs of mint. And if you're feeling really fancy, hit that mint with some bitters. Cheers. And that, my friends, is the real deal. Very slight orange bite, just a hint of almond. All agricoles have a flavor component that is most commonly referred to as grassy or vegetal. That's definitely here, but the sharp funk of the stolen overproof is balancing it out perfectly. This is wonderful. The real tragedy of this drink though, is that Audrey's hanging out with a friend and she can't taste this. Eh. If you're intimidated by all the ingredients in this drink, I get it, but you don't have to buy them all at once. Get one a week or one every other week and before you know it, you'll be there. And if there were ever a drink worth fussing over the details, this is it, believe me. If you liked it, hit like, consider subscribing if you haven't already, and if there's something you think I should try, let me know in the comments. Stay safe, follow the advice of professionals, and now to make another Mai Tai.