Category: Rum

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The Essential Ingredient in the Halekulani Mai Tai

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

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Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Rum vs. Ultimate Mai Tai Rum

As previously posted, I set out to recreate the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Rum that was issued in the 60s-80s. Comprised of mostly Jamaican rum, plus Martinique and Virgin Islands rum, this rum was used the Mai Tai, Suffering Bastard, and other Trader Vic’s recipes of the era.

As we’re want to do, we did a little comparison test with this rum and our our Ultimate Mai Tai rum blend, a bold and boozy four rum combo of Appleton 12, Smith & Cross, Planteray Xaymaca, and Planteray OFTD. The two Mai Tais were made with common ingredients including shared pool of juice.

These are actually pretty close, but both Mrs. Mai Tai and I preferred the Ultimate Mai Tai blend.

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Mai Tai Rum Old-Fashioned

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.

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Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Rum

This rum was a multi-island blend produced by Trader Vic’s starting in the late 1950s and commercially issued through sometime in the 1980s. I found some recipes that call for this rum, which of course was also specified in the Mai Tai of that era. So I tried to replicate it using currently available rums.

The breakdown of components is:
70% Jamaica
20% Martinique
10% Virgin Islands

That Virgin Islands rum is basically used to lengthen the product and to reduce the overall cost, but only by a little, in contrast to the Jamaican rum that would have aged for some time. Vic also sold 15 and 8 year Jamaica rum bottles.

The Martinique rhum used here is the subject of debate. Here’s how Trader Vic describes rhum from Martinique:

“Martinique rums are similar to dark Jamaica rums because they are dark and pungent in flavor and aroma. They are especially suitable for flavoring sweets and for making rum punches of the heavier variety.

Some of the Martinique rums are distilled and bottled in Martinique for export to us (Rhum St. James); some are distilled in Martinique, shipped to France for aging, and reshipped to us as French rum (Negrita). These French rums are extremely dark and carry more of a molasses taste than the Martinique-bottled rum; the French like them in wintertime hot grogs.”
Trader Vic’s Rum Cookery & Drinkery

This doesn’t sound like a rhum agricole to me, but “smoky and funky” sound a lot like Worthy Park 109, so I’m using that in place.

In recreating the rum, I used:
4 parts Worthy Park Single Estate Reserve (aged 6-10 years)
3 parts Appleton 8
2 parts Worthy Park 109
1 part Cruzan Aged

This is a flavorful rum, though not one that I would quite call pungent, so perhaps I could have omitted the Appleton in lieu of more Single Estate Reserve.

In any case, it sure makes a great Mai Tai, just like the Trader said it would.

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International Bartenders Association (IBA) Mai Tai Recipe Learns the Wrong Lesson

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.

The split base of rums in the IBA recipe actually dates back many years when simply “dark rum” and “light rum” were listed. Worse, these earlier entires included only a scant third of an ounce of lime juice with everything thing else in typical Mai Tai ratios.

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.

What a mess.

From the Mai Tai entry:

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.

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Kingston Negroni with Rare Cane Jamaica Pot Still Rum

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.

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Rare Cane Jamaica Pot Still Rum

There’s been a frenzy of social media posts about this rum this month, influenced by our mid-year ranking of a Mai Tai made with this rum being number one of the year as well as a recent fire sale on the product at SoCal retailer Hi-Time Wine Cellars. With the rum dropping in price to under $20 I made sure to secure a bottle to try again at home.

Rare Cane is a new independent bottler with a few expressions available, with this one being the largest in distribution with 1400 bottles. Rare Cane Jamaica Pot Still is a boozy 68% ABV and is finished in madeira style California wine barrels. This is comparable to several Dr. Bird rum expressions finished in similar casks, and both use Worthy Park distillate. Which is to say that it is funky and a total flavor bomb, but more approachable than Dr. Bird’s standard expression aged in Moscatel sherry casks. Rare Cane has more traditional barrel aging notes to my taste and is darker in color than Dr. Bird.

Regular readers know that punchy and higher proof Jamaican rums are my sweet spot for a Mai Tai, and Rare Cane delivers at home nearly as well as it did back in March when Jason Alexander made me one at Devil’s Reef in Tacoma for our best Mai Tai of the year so far. I’m guessing Jason used a little bit of vanilla syrup, since a Mai Tai I made with a quarter ounce of syrup replacing the Demerara seemed closer to what I remembered.

Rare Cane Jamaica Pot Still Rum is a limited release and is worth seeking out if you can still find it.