Post #289204 by martiki on Fri, Mar 2, 2007 11:38 AM

Ugh. Fine- here's the story. The Trader Vic's Suffering Bastard is bullshit. It's virtually a Mai Tai with a little more rum and a cucumber.

These are the in-house recipes:

Mai Tai

1/2 squeezed lime
1/4 oz lime juice (to top up the fresh lime- in Bay Area locations, it's 1/4 ounce lemon juice, since the lemon juice concentrate that Vic's uses tastes better than the frozen lime juice concentrate that they carry. Now you know the ugly truth)
3/4 oz Mai Tai Concentrate (remember this is the in-house concentrate which is CONSIDERABLY different from the retail product)
2 oz Vic's Royal Amber Rum (this is their in-house Mai Tai Rum. It has recently been made available to retail outlets. It is terrible. Do not for one second live under the illusion that it is a blend of Jamaican & Martinique rums. It is unaged Cruzan from the USVI with coloring and flavoring added.)

If you ask for a Mai Tai San Francisco style, you will get curacao & orgeat in place of the Concentrate, and Trader Vic's Gold & Dark rum, which are marginally better, but not much. Still not Jamaican or from Martinique.

Suffering Bastard

1/2 squeezed lime
3/4 oz Mai Tai Concentrate
1 oz Vic's light rum
1 oz Vic's gold rum
1/2 oz Vic's dark rum

with a cucumber.

Over the years, Vic's has simplified and consolidated many of it's recipes to save on time, money, and ingredients. Sad truth.

Stick with the Grog Log Bastard. It doesn't call for a cucumber, but it would be good with one.