Post #578295 by Chip and Andy on Tue, Mar 1, 2011 11:02 AM

A nice ripe key lime is a thing of joy in a cocktail.

Sadly even here in Florida 'ripe' key limes are hard to find. Everyone seems convinced that limes are supposed to be green which is not true of key limes. A ripe key lime is yellow heading for orange and when truly ripe is wonderfully tart with just enough sweet to keep it from being bitter.

As to key lime juice in a Mai Tai.... No. Not usually.

Most key limes you find in markets are horribly under-ripe and border on the bitter. Add to that you can get a scant quarter ounce out of one and fully three quarters out of the next; its too random to make a good, and consistent, cocktail that way.

You can use key lime if you want too, and if you can get good key limes you should! but even with the 'Juice of one lime' measure if you want to be able to repeat your drink tomorrow or the next day, or the next, you need to measure it down to some quantity and then test your juice from each lime for sweet/tart/bitter.