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
Mrs Mai Tai and I are flying to Arizona Tiki Oasis and got things started at the world’s best airport bar. The Mai Tai is especially potent on an empty stomach at 9:00 in the morning. Today is also my birthday and it is hard to beat a great Trader Vic’s Mai Tai as a kickoff.
My grilled cheese sandwich was just okay, but look at the Island Parfait! Greek Yogurt, berries, granola, and Trader Vic’s peanut butter! So good. Mrs Mai Tai made the right choice.
Had a great time last night for Ohana night at The Kon-Tiki in Oakland. The staff was really humming along, even after the place even got a little crowded (that’s a good thing). Bartender Kris even put on a fabulous flame show over a couple Jet Pilots (sadly I did not document). It was really impressive.
Besides the Kon-Tiki’s always amazing cheeseburger, I tried the Happy Hour Saturn that was quite tangy. Total bargain, with a great gin finish.
The Kon-Tiki’s vast rum selection offers so many options. This time I opted for the Hampden 2021 Great House Jamaican rum in a Mai Tai and it was totally fantastic.
Props to Andy at Easy Tiki Drinks for getting the recipe to the Officer’s Mai Tai from Devil’s Reef in Tacoma. Jason Alexander makes some truly amazing cocktails, and this Mai Tai riff is no exception. It’s really quite great, using two excellent Plantation rums as the base.
Want the recipe? Head over to the Easy Tiki Drinks channel on YouTube to check it out. But suffice to say that the addition of a small ingredient means this a different animal than the traditional 1944 Mai Tai. But riffs are fine, especially if labeled as such like this one is.
This one is served in a tall glass, paying homage to Devil’s Reef – one of the best tiki bars in America. Really hoping we can make it up to SeaTac sometime when the Reef is open.
Denizen Merchant’s Reserve rum has a well-earned reputation for being a great single-bottle Mai Tai rum. It’s a blend of aged Jamaican rum along with some molasses-based rum from Martinique, intended to reproduce the rum used in Trader Vic’s “Second Adjusted Formula” from the 1950s.
While at Dr. Funk I thought I’d give their excellent Mai Tai a try with Denizen’s more recent blended rum product, the Vatted Dark. This is a 100 proof blend of Demerara Rum from Guyana along with unaged Rhum Agricole from Martinique. The complex and savory notes work well in a Mai Tai and other cocktails, and the Dr. Funk version delivered.
I also tried the chicken skewers that have a wonderful ginger glaze. These were quite tasty and served alongside seasoned rice. A very good portion for the price.
I am revisiting this cocktail after a few months and did a few variants to taste test. I was told it was too sweet, and I suppose that might be true for some people but it tastes great to me.
I would say that full pot-still rums like Rum-Bar or Rum Fire do work much better than the blended Wray & Nephew Overproof. I tested the “aged white rum” components with White Stache and Probitas and found that while I prefer the heavier Probitas overall this is a less important component than the White Overproof Jamaican rum portion.
Blue Hawai-Tai by Kevin Crossman
1 oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Simple Syrup
½ oz Blue Curacao
1 oz White Overproof Jamaican Rum
½ oz Aged White Rum
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice. Shake and dump into a small snifter glass. Garnish with Mint and tropical fruit.
We were lucky to snag tickets to the @sac_ohana monthly gathering this month, since the event sold out in just 3 minutes. It seems everyone made this month’s event at Birds of Paradise Lounge a priority, even on Easter. Easy to see why, though, since the house is so well appointed and the homeowners @mrs_bravo and @midcenturytiki are even nicer.
Truly a sight to behold, with a nondescript living room transformed into a tiki bar with artwork, mugs, and spirits galore. And then there’s the living room with wood paneling and wall to wall Witco. And finally the spectacular pool in the very large backyard. What a dream.
We were quite impressed by the cocktails, which included a cinnamon-forward Zombie and a light and refreshing Pisco Punch. And the Mai Tai? The best I’ve had all year. The Birds of Paradise Mai Tai includes a rum blend of Appleton 12, Smith & Cross, Plantation Xaymaca, and Kō Hana Kea. So flavorful, with a savory finish that was fantastic.
The Sac Ohana group is doing a great job with these monthly meetups, and certainly are a model for any local community of tikiphiles to follow. Nice to see some familiar faces, even if our visit was not quite as long as we would have liked.
Prep work for my Tiki Kon presentation starts with revisiting the 1956 Mai Tai recipe. This was provided by Trader Vic himself to a customer and propertied to be the recipe used at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Definitely different than the classic 1944 recipes, but most certainly not an Island Mai Tai with pineapple juice.
Original 1956 Mai Tai recipe:
Juice of One Lime
Dash of Rock Candy Syrup
Dash of Curacao
Dash of Orgeat
1½ ounces Trader Vic’s Puerto Rican Rum
¾ ounce Myers’s Plantation Punch Rum
Stir and decorate with fresh mint
1956 Mai Tai – Adjusted for 2022
1 ounce Lime Juice
¼ ounce Rock Candy Syrup
¼ ounce Curacao
¼ ounce Orgeat
1½ ounces Lightly Aged Puerto Rican Rum
¾ ounce Hamilton 114 rum or Worthy Park 109 rum
Mix in 16 ounce tumbler glass with shaved ice. Drop half a spent lime shell in the glass. Stir and decorate with fresh mint.