The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai
Traveling the Bay Area and beyond to find the best Mai Tai in the world! Tiki, cocktails, and adventures by Kevin Crossman
We were able to get a sample of the Appleton Estate 17 Year Legend rum and decided to share it with our buddy Derek from the Make & Drink channel on YouTube. My experience with the rum was a little different compared to my tastings in London and at Smuggler’s Cove.
In the video we compare Appleton 17 to another rum blend designed to taste like the original, the Greg Easter Wray 17 clone.
The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai was relaunched on Instagram on this day in 2017, reviving the brand started way back in 1998. 2195 posts and counting, chronicling experiences with cocktails, connections with people in the community, and world’s leading feed of Mai Tai minutiae.
We had some great adventures in the last 12 months. A few are chronicled in the photos including some travels with Mrs Mai Tai to far off places such as Honolulu, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and various locations in California including Sacramento, Disneyland, and Napa. I attended Tiki in Waikiki and presented at Trader Vic’s as part of the SF Rum Festival.
42 different tiki bars in the last year. We said goodbye to ones in Minneapolis and Oakland but found new ones in Orinda, Petaluma, and Las Vegas. I was featured on the Make & Drink channel on YouTube and my Ultimate Mai Tai was added to cocktail menu at Tiki Tom’s.
So, thanks to so many fellow Mai Tai fans I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with over the last year. I appreciate your follows, likes, and comments here and in real-life, including the discussion of very important topics such as the best orgeat and whether or not fun can be had in a tiki dive bar.
Cheers!
We picked this up at a craft faire in SF last month. Yes Cocktail Co. has a number of syrups and also has sugar cubes with infused bitters. We won’t be doing a full review of the latter except to say that as sugar cubes they don’t dissolve easily all, rendering them unsuitable for “saving a step” by including the bitters.
More successful is Yes’s Orgeat. This craft syrup tastes great just by itself and is pretty good in a Mai Tai. I made a Mai Tai based on the recipe on the label, using Appleton 8 as the blended aged rum. This recipe only uses ¾ oz lime juice and omits any additional sugar syrups. It made a good Mai Tai, albeit more milky in consistency than some orgeats, though I think I’d have preferred a heavier pour of orgeat and a full ounce of lime juice. Comparable in taste and consistency to Liber & Co.
