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
In case you’ve missed this amazing new cocktail channel, now would be a great time to head over to Make and Drink on YouTube and see all the videos @makeanddrinkderek has been doing for Mai Tai month.
Derek says “This is something you level up to. It is as good of a Mai Tai as you’re ever going to have.”
The King is dead. Long live the King.
That’s the takeaway after tasting the much hyped Appleton 17 Legend rum in a Mai Tai at Smuggler’s Cove tonight. Simply amazing and so mich better than even SC’s world-class standard Mai Tai. So much more flavorful and rich. Consistent with a previous tasting, it lingers so long on the palette and it’s a taste that is simply unlike any rum or blend I’ve ever tried.
The shenanigans started before opening, when Martin Cate came out with a “Mai Tai” to whet our appetite. Inside the efficiency of the SC crew meant that rum pours and Mai Tais flowed quite quickly. But the quality in the cocktail was still there.
Having a rum to be similar to the original Wray & Nephew 17 used in the original Mai Tai has been a passion of SC’s owner Martin Cate. Literally imploring and begging Appleton to make such a rum. And tonight it was here at one of the world’s greatest tiki bars and made using Smuggler’s Cove high standards for lime, orgeat, curaçao, sugar, and rum. Cheers, Martin.
One of the best Mai Tais I’ve ever had!
Some additional notes and commentary from the Appleton 17 Legend event last week in London, this time pulling out a few items that weren’t directly related to the release of that rum expression.
Dr. Joy Spence noted that Appleton only uses high quality barrels for aging, because “if you age in crap barrels you get… crap.” Finely noted and certainly a factor in the end result quality of any aged rum.
According to Spence, the Scotch Whiskey Institute did a study of the same distillate aged in Scotland and In Jamaica. The study found that the distillate aged in Jamaica was three times as fast for the same effective taste.
We asked about the shortage of Appleton 12 and Appleton 8 during most of 2022. Spence noted that it was a supply chain problem due to inability to get bottles from their sole supplier. That supplier couldn’t make the bottles because they got their raw materials from Ukraine. So, if you’re looking for another reason to dislike Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion… Hopefully we won’t have to revisit Appleton 12 shortages again.
Lastly, Spence described a cocktail that’s a favorite in Jamaica. The drink is called the Epic Cocktail and it is made thusly. 1) Open a coconut. 2) Crack open the top. 3) Pour in some Appleton 8, then drink. “You’ll have an epic time!” I’m sure that’s definitely the case.
We were fortunate snag the last spots to attend a ticketed tasting event for the Appleton 17 Legend release at Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge. The £50 event included a welcome Mai Tai with Appleton 8 plus tastings of Appleton 8, 12, and 21 – and the latest Appleton Hearts releases: 1993 and 2002. We also had some truffles made with Appleton rums and a lemon sorbet palette cleanser.
Appleton’s Master Blender Dr. Joy Spence led us through tastings of these rums and was joined Campari ambassador Chris Dennis to discuss Appleton’s rum line, J. Wray & Nephew heritage, and the production and release of Appleton 17 Legend – made to replicate the historical Wray 17 used in the original Trader Vic’s Mai Tai.
The approach leading us to Legend made sense, though it was a lot of rum building up (I didn’t finish my samples to keep a clearer head). The inclusion of Hearts, a single marque pot still release was quite useful. I found the 2002 to be a flavor bomb similar to the 1995, 1999, and 2003 releases I’ve tried. But the 1993 had an unusual finish best described as “minty.” The wonders of pot stills.
All of which led us to a small sample pf Appleton 17 Legend and then a taste in a Mai Tai made by Dennis. Issued at 49% ABV like the historic original, this is more than a proofed down Hearts release. The blend of four marques means this is truly unique. There is no traditional Appleton orange peel, nor overripe fruit. Instead there are hints of nutmeg and herbal spices. It is delicious nest from a glass but even better in Mai Tai where the long and lingering finish is truly sublime. Dennis made the Mai Tai with Ferrand Dry Curaçao and homemade orgeat and rich simple.
Locals were able to purchase a bottle for pickup on Monday. At $500, the rum is fab but I’d probably choose almost two Hearts bottles instead.
We left with goodie bags featuring an Appleton jigger, blue glass, and a cute bottle of Appleton 8. We thank Campari and Appleton for putting on such a great event.
Had a nice afternoon in Alameda on the patio with friends celebrating Forbidden Island‘s 17th anniversary. The seminal third wave tiki bar opened in 2006 and is still going strong. We were glad to stay outdoors in prep for our upcoming trip to the British Isles, so we missed the live Hawaiian music and hula from Haopinaka, but it sounded great from afar.
Copalli rum was doing free tastings of their line, including a delightful cask strength expression picked by Forbidden Island. Copalli was present in one of my cocktails, the nicely balanced Copalli Chartreuse Swizzle. Gotta order those Chartreuse cocktails when the French herbal liqueur is still actually available.
Following up from my visit a few weeks back I tried the Infinite Coastline again, but this time with the robust and boozy Rum Fire Jamaica Rum. I really liked this and it remains, as they say, easy drinking.
Nice to see so many familiar faces celebrating Forbidden Island’s birthday – and there was even cake. Congrats to Michael Thanos and all the staff who keep FI going strong.
This recipe comes from a 1997 Honolulu Star-Bulletin article, and curiously doesn’t include any Pineapple Juice.
1990s Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai
5 oz Mai Tai Mix
1 oz White Rum
1 oz Myers’s Dark Rum
Fill glass with ice, add mix and rums
Mai Tai Mix
10 oz Orange Juice
4 oz Orange Curacao
2 oz Orgeat
2 oz Rock Candy Syrup
2 oz Sour Lemon
Combine all ingredients and add water to make 1 quart
This complex and large format Mai Tai Mix likely isn’t particularly approachable for the home bartender, though if a math wiz wants to scale this down for individual serving size we’ll gladly attribute your effort.
Update: our friend Cory Schoolland did the math and while the exact amounts for some of these are technically a bit higher or lower than indicated this is very close without having to measure in single milliliters.
Mai Tai Mix (single use)
1½ oz Orange Juice
⅔ oz Orange Curacao
⅓ oz Orgeat
⅓ oz Rock Candy Syrup
⅓ oz Sour Lemon Juice
1¾ oz Water
According to legend, the Rum Runner cocktail was originally developed when “Tiki John” Ebert improvised a new cocktail based on leftover ingredients at the Holiday Isle Resort in the Florida Keys in 1972.
And, strangely, looking at leftover bottles is also what led me to making this cocktail.
I was going through one of the main liquor cabinets at home and thought maybe it was time to take look at dumping stuff I’m no longer using or to finish up an almost empty bottle. This was the case with my beloved Giffard Banane du Brésil, almost empty (and with a spare bottle already at the ready). I look way in the back and saw a bottle of Blackberry Brandy. I’ve head this for years and it’s been so long I don’t even remember why I had it.
Banana and Blackberry… what could I make? Thankfully, I remembered these were the two cornerstone ingredients in a Rum Runner.
Rum Runner
1½ oz Lime Juice
⅞ oz Banana Liqueur (Giffard)
⅞ oz Blackberry Brandy (Hiram Walker)
⅝ oz Grenadine
¾ oz 151 Proof Puerto Rican Rum (Cruzan)
Fill 5 cup blender half full with ice cubes and blend until smooth.
I blended until smooth and poured into a bamboo glass and it was a perfect pour right to the rim!
The above recipe is what’s on the souvenir cup pictured in the Total Tiki App and differs slightly from the listed recipe by using less grenadine. In actuality, this is too much ice for the amount of rum and liqueurs. Pretty flavorless and leans a little tart. So, I added about an ounce more of the Blackberry Brandy and it did improve the cocktail. The recipe on the cup doesn’t specify a type of rum and certainly a Demerara 151 likely would also improve this.
I’ve heard the Banana is lost in this and I must concur. Maybe I should have used artificial creme de banana instead of this good Giffard liqueur.
