I ran across this recipe from Deb Parks, wife of famed bartender Doc Parks, celebrating the end of summer. The recipe uses tequila and cane juice rum, a combo I hadn’t tried, so I thought I’d give this a shot and see if any of Doc’s mixology skills have rubbed off on his better half.
So Long Summer by Deb Parks ¾ oz Fresh Lime juice ¾ oz Fresh Grapefruit juice ½ oz Cinnamon Syrup ½ oz Passionfruit Vanilla Syrup l oz Fortaleza Tequila Blanco l oz Kō Hana Kea Rum Shake with ice and dirty dump. I subbed El Jimador Blanco for the tequila.
This is a pretty good cocktail, especially if you like things that lean just a little dryer than you sometimes find in tropical cocktails. The combination of tequila and the lightly grassy Hawaiian cane rum really works great together and aren’t quite as assertive as something like Mezcal or Rhum Agricole might be. The grapefruit is fab in here, too – and as we know from Don the Beachcomber grapefruit and cinnamon pair very well. Save this refresher of a recipe for when you want to relive the summer.
Autumn is now here, but we’ll always have this cocktail to remember the summer of 2025. Cheers.
As the Trader Vic’s restaurant and food services empire expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, there were several variants of the Mai Tai developed to appeal to different customers. All of these were simply a Mai Tai but with an adjustment to rum or spirit being used. The Menehune Juice was simply a Mai Tai made with light Puerto Rican rum and the Suffering Bastard was one made with three ounces of rum rather than two.
Vic also developed versions using different spirits, including the Pinky Gonzalez with tequila, Honi Honi with bourbon, and the Rusky Tai made with vodka (now designated as “Vodka Tai” on Trader Vic’s menus). Using the Mai Tai as a template, these are all still really great cocktails.
Notable in absentia is the lack of gin Mai Tai, especially since gin was featured in many of Vic’s cocktails. This seemed like a strange omission, so I decided to make one at home using Tanqueray Gin, nicely flavorful at 47% ABV. I was really interested to see how this worked.
It was terrible.
I guess ol’ Vic knew a thing or two about cocktails because for some reason this “Juniper Tai” was truly awful and almost undrinkable. The gin’s Juniper and botanical flavors did not pair well with orange curaçao and almond-forward orgeat. They can’t all be winners, I guess.
Everyone is getting geared up for Mai Tai Day on August 30, including the Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki. This is the home of one of Waikiki’s best Mai Tais, made in a fashion very similar to the original Hawaiian Mai Tai that was introduced in 1953 by Trader Vic.
Earlier this year we covered the evolution of the cocktail based on published recipes that the Halekulani has made available over the years. The current version is pretty good and like that 1950s original Hawaiian Mai Tai it uses the sweeteners in equal portions, plus a dark rum alongside a lighter rum.
Every great Mai Tai needs a signature rum, and the Halekulani’s Mai Tai is no exception. The key ingredient here is the float of Lemon Hart 151 rum, which adds savory smoky notes to the cocktail along with the layer of color that tourists expect in Mai Tais in Waikiki. It is truly essential to the success of this cocktail, and mild low-proof dark rums simply don’t cut it. Other brands that are suitable for the float here would be Hamilton 151, Planteray OFTD, or any dark Guyana rum.
The recipe is not quite an original 1944, nor is it a “Tourist Tai” with tons of pineapple and OJ. The Halekuani Mai Tai is its own thing, and it is delicious.
Favorite memory at the Halekuani: relaxing in the shade to the sound of waves lapping on the shore, sipping an amazing Mai Tai that’s unlike any other on Waikiki.
Halekulani Mai Tai 1¼ oz Lime Juice ⅓ oz Orgeat ⅓ oz Rock Candy Syrup ⅓ oz Orange Curacao ¾ oz Bacardi Select/Black Rum ¾ oz Bacardi Gold Rum Combine ingredients over crushed ice Float ½ oz Lemon Hart 151 Rum Garnish with lime wheel, sugar cane stick, and vanda orchid
I found this one in Trader Vic’s Helluva Mans Cookbook and in Trader Vic’s Rum Cookery & Drinkery (both 1970s). It is a classic cocktail riff that uses rum rather than whiskey.
The specified rum is Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Rum, which we wrote about yesterday, a blend of rums from Jamaica, Martinique, and Virgin Islands. I remade this rum at home using currently available rums and used it in this cocktail.
From Trader Vic’s Helluva Mans Cookbook: “If you like a good pungent rum that’s got a good flavor, you’ll find this a very nice drink. We blend this Mai Tai rum from five or six different rums from different islands.
Mai Tai Rum Old-Fashioned 1½ ounces Trader Vic Mai Tai rum ½ ounce water 2 dashes maraschino cherry juice 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters Pour first 4 ingredients into a 10-ounce old-fashioned glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Add a twist of lemon peel. Decorate with a fruit stick and fresh mint.”
Tasting Notes: Sadly, this wasn’t one of Vic’s greatest hits. It tastes like watered down rum with little hints of sweetness and anise because, well, that’s what it is.
The International Bartenders Association (IBA) was founded in the U.K. in 1951. The trade organization is made up of chapters in over 60 countries and through the decades has hosted cocktail and bartending competitions.
The IBA publishes an officially codified cocktail list, first compiled in 1961, with the intent to provide an authoritative recipe for 102 of the most important cocktails. The official list of cocktails expanded every few years starting in 1987 when the Mai Tai was added.
The Mai Tai is a somewhat curious entry, since it calls for both Jamaican and Martinique rum but also specifically describes the Martinique rhum as coming from molasses, a recipe nominally similar to the Trader Vic’s 2nd Adjusted formula where Martinique rhum is used. The idea of this rhum being molasses distillate came from the 2016 publication of the Smuggler’s Cove book where authors Martin Cate and Rebecca Cate question the type of Martinique rhum used and suggesting that then common use of the sugar cane juice-based Martinique Rhum Agricole in a Mai Tai isn’t historically accurate.
There seems to have been a recent attempt to bring this recipe up to contemporary standards, yet they learned the wrong lesson from the Cate’s book because rather than just call for an aged rum or a Jamaican rum they instead went back to the version published in Trader Vic’s books in the 1970s where Jamaican and Martinique rums were paired. They tried to please the Beachbum Berry camp by including both types of rums and the Cate camp omitting an Agricole – and therefore essentially painted themselves into a corner.
As it stands this IBA official recipe is basically impossible to make, because molasses-based Martinique rhum is not widely available. Even worse, in the IBA’s glamour video demonstrating how to make the cocktail they simply use a Rhum Agricole anyway.
IBA Mai Tai 30 ml Amber Jamaican Rum 30 ml Martinique Molasses Rhum* 15 ml Orange Curacao 15 ml Orgeat Syrup (Almond) 30 ml Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice 7.5 ml Simple Syrup Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into a double rocks glass or an highball glass. Garnish with pineapple spear, mint leaves and lime peel.
* The Martinique molasses rum used by Trader Vic was not an Agricole Rhum but a type of “rummy” from molasses.
This interesting Mai Tai riff made the rounds on a couple private Discords I’m on, and I’m thankful since it had evaded my radar up to now. The 2044 Mai Tai comes from Three Dots and a Dash in Chicago via an article in Fatherly.
The recipe features two notable changes from the classic Mai Tai. The half ounce of orange curaçao liqueur is replaced by the sweet herbal Yellow Chartreuse in a subtle change that is sort of buried in the blend due to the firebomb of a rum blend made with funky high proof rums.
The rum blend is specified as being equal parts of Wray & Nephew Overproof rum from Jamaica, Rhum JM Blanc from Martinique, and Avua cask strength cachaça from Brazil. These flavor bombs that lean on sugar cane juice distillate really come forward in the cocktail and impact a very different character than traditional long-aged molasses rums that the Mai Tai is most associated with.
2044 Mai Tai, Three Dots and a Dash, Chicago 1 oz Lime Juice 1 oz Orgeat ½ oz Yellow Chartreuse 2 oz Rum Blend Shake with crushed ice.
2044 Mai Tai Rum Blend 1 part Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum 1 part Rhum JM Blanc 55 Rhum Agricole 1 part Avua Cask Strength Cachaça
The JM I have at home is 50% ABV, so close enough in my estimation. I substituted Saint Benevolence Rum Clairin for the Avua since it is a higher ABV than any of the cachaças I had in stock, and feel vindicated seeing a Reddit post that shows Garret Richard doing the same thing at Sunken Harbor Club. The clairin is perhaps a bit too forward in this particular blend; I would suggest pulling it back a little or substituting Rum Fire for the Wray & Nephew.
More praise for Rare Cane Jamaica Pot Still rum which works great in a Kingston Negroni. The bold and funky Overproof rum works as a great balance to the bitter Campari and Sweet Vermouth.
As previously shared, while this cocktail is supposed to be an equal parts of all three ingredients, I do like to go a little easy on the Campari and a little heavy on the rum.
Kingston Negroni 1 oz Sweet Vermouth 1 oz Campari (easy pour) 1 oz Jamaica Rum (heavy pour) Stir with ice and pour over large cube. Express orange peel.
