Mai Tai week continues with a twist, thanks to Derek from Make & Drink who treated me to a Mai Tai Slushie made in his Ninja machine. Derek is launching Make & Drink Frozen, a new YouTube channel devoted to frozen cocktails, so check out today’s video and also give his new channel a watch.
Derek’s slushie was comparable to the one I had with an industrial machine at Tommy Bahama’s Marlin bar in San Diego. Three fine Jamaica rums were used in Derek’s Mai Tai, and you could float some rum for additional flavor or ABV if that’s your thing.
We guested on Make & Drink to try Mai Tais made with eight different aged Jamaica rums in a Mai Tai, in order to determine the best single bottle rum of the bunch.
The rums included:
Appleton 8
Appleton Signature
Denizen Merchant’s Reserve
Monymusk Classic Gold
Planteray Xaymaca
Rum Bar Gold
Smith & Cross
Worthy Park Select
The results were really interesting and based on the ranking by both Derek and me even a little bit shocking. Watch the video to see which rums we rated the highest and which one was the overall winner.
The 1958 Havana Mai Tai was an interesting oddball of a recipe and has some interesting connections to the use of Martinique Rhum in combination with Jamaica Rum. We joined Derek on Make & Drink to discuss and taste this Mai Tai.
Derek from the Make & Drink YouTube channel asked me to come up with a two-rum Mai Tai as simpler version of our four-rum Ultimate Mai Tai. This was actually harder than you’d think, and I decided that using Appleton 12 and Smith & Cross from the Ultimate Mai Tai blend was sort of a cop out (though those two rums are fabulous in a Mai Tai). I ended up going with some newer rum expressions that are among my favorites.
The Penultimate Mai Tai by Kevin Crossman 1 oz Lime Juice ½ oz Latitude 29 Orgeat ¼ oz Demerara Syrup ½ oz Quality Orange Curacao 1½ oz Worthy Park 109 Jamaica Rum ½ oz Kuleana Rum Works Hawaiian Rum Agricole Shake with ice and garnish with lime and mint.
The Worthy Park is a boozy and flavorful dark rum, similar in style to the punch rums from the 1950s. There is a little bit of the “funk” common to many Jamaica rums but there’s also a charred backbone as well. This rum is becoming more widely available and there’s literally nothing like it on the market today. Subbing an 80 proof dark Jamaica rum like Coruba or Myers’s isn’t going to provide the same results.
There’s a tradition of using Rhum Agricole in Mai Tais, so I thought I’d include a cane juice-based rum. My favorite in this style are the cane rums from Hawaii, which aren’t as grassy as those from Martinique but also have more flavor than some of the delicate Cachacas from Brazil. If you can’t find Kuleana or KōHana, then Copalli from Belize is a good sub.
Thanks to Derek for having me back on the channel to talk about Mai Tais once again. Look for a super interesting collaboration coming soon.
We’ve been supporters of Spike Marble’s YouTube show Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour ever since it debuted in 2020. Based in Orange Country, Spike is the frontman for The Hula Girls rockabilly group and a longtime member of the SoCal tiki scene. His YouTube show focuses on cocktails that are often made with a special guest in attendance, but some recent episode are shot in a travelogue style and shows Spike visiting commercial and home tiki bars.
Tonight’s episode has Spike tasting our Ultimate Mai Tai. Now that we’ve watched the episode, what were Spike’s thoughts on the Ultimate Mai Tai? Spike says this is “Complex, there are a lot of different layers dancing around. The rums aren’t hiding in this cocktail. That is a delicious Mai Tai. This is super good.”
Spike’s suggestion for an improvement was to add an orchid for a garnish, which is a great addition. Thanks to Spike for trying the Ultimate Mai Tai and having kind words to say about it.
David Bartell has posted a new video that’s an incredible deep dive biography of Carrie Guild, the woman who named the Mai Tai (or perhaps the wife of the person who named the Mai Tai). Bartell is a longtime contributor to the Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai, providing Mai Tai reviews back on the original site and contributing the circa-1999 essay “Famous Dirty Stinkers” which is still available.
Here’s the description of Bartell’s video essay:
“Maita’i roa ae! Out of this world, the best!” That’s the legendary phrase that gave the Mai Tai its name, according to Trader Vic. The toast was made by a friend, Carrie Guild, who with her husband Eastham were visiting from Tahiti.
Many of you already know that version of the story, but just who was this woman, and what do we know about the context of her gastronomic enthusiasm? Quite a lot!
In this video you will explore uncharted details about the circumstances surrounding the origin of the Mai Tai cocktail, while sailing around the world with the Guilds. If you read the companion article in the November 2023 issue of Exotica Moderne, get ready for an even deeper dive and a few little surprises for tiki afficionados.
You might catch a cameo of someone familiar toward the end of the video.
