Post #252920 by TofuJoe on Thu, Sep 7, 2006 2:34 PM

On 2006-09-07 13:39, thinkingbartender wrote:
It is strange how I always get the same sort of responses on Tiki Central. Every drink is lauded as being so very different when they are not really. A splash here, a splash there may change the nuances of the drink, but it doesn't change the basic structure.

Ok, Lets do this again and I'll ignore the actual drink recipes and any possible bias on flavors, etc, and the fact that asking such a question on TC is basically pulling our collective chains. :)

On 2006-09-07 13:39, thinkingbartender wrote:
My feeling is that Trader Vic just kept re-hashing the same ideas with whatever ingredients were available to him, depending on the stock in a particular bar or region.

The Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail is just not catchy as names go, and does not evoke some tropical island bar, but it does sound like a drink at a yacht club!-)

Mai Tai is a triumph of branding and marketing. A mysterious, little understood exotic phrase, used to give mystique to a tried and tested combination of flavours.

Wayne Curtis, if I recall correctly, says that Don Beach probably created A Mai Tai before Trader Vic, but that TV deserves to be remembered because of his better recipe.

Does the Mai Tai name deserve to be remembered because it is a better name than Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail? I think so.

And I'll do it because you have some very good points.

I would say undoubtedly TV dipped back into some old ideas when trying to create new drinks. And very likely he did look for an exotic sounding name for a drink when he decided to go polynesian. The guy was a bigger than life personality who had a gift for flair and a way of making his ideas attractive and appealing. If he didn't, we probably wouldn't be talking about him today.

It is possible that he was sitting in his yacht club themed restaurant/bar looking over the old drink menu thinking "Gee I need to make these drinks sound more exotic if I'm going to rebrand this place as a polynesian paradise". Its possible he took the Bermuda Yacht Club, matched up the flavors and picked a nice bottle of rum to go with them.

Since I don't know, I'll choose to think that he found himself a fantastic bottle of rum and set out to mix a fantastic drink that showed of that rum to its fullest. If he leaned on some flavors that have worked well in the past, that's fine with me.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. :wink: