Post #255858 by PiPhiRho on Wed, Sep 20, 2006 8:41 PM

You might be just as well off to find a bottle of the Trader Vic's Mai Tai mix than to try and aquire all the ingredients yourself and mix one from scratch. That way you only need to add lime juice and rum. It will taste kind of like a vic's mai tai. I usually add a little extra orgeat and some orange bitters when mixing a mai tai from the store mix as it helps better simulate the taste of a real mai tai. Get a real lime and use the juice of one lime, rather than the 1-1/2 oz of lime juice called for by the recipe on the bottle.

The thing not to skimp on is the rum. Don't use light rum in a mai tai. You should use an aged rum, which is gold/amber in color. Appleton or Mt Gay are good ones to use. For the dark rum Myers's will do fine.

So if using the mix then fill a rocks glass with crushed ice and add

• juice of one fresh lime
• one shot gold rum
• float with Myers's (about 1/2 to 1 oz)

If you have orgeat and orange bittes, add a couple of shakes of the bitters and about a teaspoon of the orgeat.

To mix from scratch you will need:

• One fresh Lime
• 1/4 oz Orgeat Syrup
• 1/4 oz Rock Candy (simple) syrup
• 1/2 oz Orange Curacao (a liqueur)
• 1-1/2 to two oz Aged (gold) rum
• Myers's float

mix everything except the dark rum and shake or stir, then top with the dark rum.

If you can't find orange curacao you can use triple sec, but the drink will taste sweeter. You can use blue curacao. but the drink will look weird (a yucky greenish color). If you REALLY want to screw it up, use grenadine instead of the simple syrup. Be sure to use that with the blue curacao so that it really looks disgusting.