Post #286075 by Melintur on Fri, Feb 16, 2007 9:56 AM

It think you'll find that Orgeat was more than often a Trader Vic peculiarity.

In the Beachbum Berry seminar at the last Hukilau, he mentioned a personal last nail in the coffin about the infamous "Who made the Mai Tai" fight: At the time of the creation of the Mai Tai, Donn did not use Orgeat. Vic did.

Interestingly, Proto-Orgeat was an elixir made of almond and Barley. This substance branched off to become (through cultures and locations) Horchata and our now-known Orgeat.

Some interesting links:

http://www2.wwnorton.com/pob/SpottedD/hundred.htm

P.S. as an interesting aside - nuts were often stored historically as a cheaper source of fat. They would keep longer than a meat source of fat - i.e. you could store them as you store grain. When you'd need some fat for a recipe, you would create "almond milk" from the crushed almonds (a first step in making Orgeat). Many medieval recipes use almond milk as their source of fat due to the popularity of this contemporary lipid-source storage.

http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec31.htm