Post #59338 by Rattiki on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 3:44 PM

Psssst...hey...c'mere. I wanna tell ya sumthin. OK...believe it or not...I actually like those sweet Mai Tais made with pineapple juice and grenadine! Yup. Now before you all start screaming "heretic!" and hurling stones at my melon, let me offer a concession. I don't understand why all of these exotic drinks have such a huge variation in recipes. Zombies, Mai Tais...there are dozens of different recipes and some are so different from the original as to be pretty much unrecognizable. I'd be more than willing to call my favorite Mai Tai by a different name. I think that's where the problem lies, not in the drink but in the name.

Nothing wrong with that, if that is what you like, BUT! I had to debate the other night with a bartender about the correct way to make a Mai Tai. He INSISTED that there was pineapple juice in it, as he had been shown at the Redondo Beach (or some such So Cal local) Chart House :roll: where he trained as a bartender, and he KNEW I was wrong.

Now when I was classically trained as chef, I was a young man full of piss, vinager and new ideas wanting to break the mold. I was told by the older (now I am their age) chef instructors to learn the classics first and THEN play with them. After 20+ years in professional cookery on more than 3 continents I can now truly understand what they meant.

People (especialy in the USA) screw around with such things so much, sometimes before they ever know the right way to do it, that they completely forget what the receipt or concept originally was. Look at BBQ, a slow cooking technique developed by the Tiano, Arawak natives of Cuba where meat was slowly cooked 4 or 5 feet above a 'sacred fire pit' (that is what barbacoa means) made of WOOD coals (not gas thank you!). The meat cooked at aprox. the tempature of boiling water, which made the gamey meat tender and smokey, and didn't burn the wooden cooking frame (they had no metalurgy). BUT way too many people think BBQ is just a SAUCE! :( :roll: This is also "why all of these exotic drinks have such a huge variation in recipes", people were so quick to screw with them, they forgot what they ever were!

BTW the Zombie was invented by Don the Beachcomber and it is :

1 oz. dark Jamacan rum
2 oz. gold Barbados rum
1 oz. white Puerto Rican rum
1/2 oz. apricot brandy
3/4 oz. papaya nectar
3/4 oz. unsweetened pineapple juice
Juice of 1 lime
Teaspoon of finely granulated sugar
Dissolve sugar in lime juice, then shake everything well with cracked ice and puor into 14 oz. frosted glass. Add a shot of soda and fill glass with ice, then float a dash of 151 rum on top. Garnish with flag and powdered sugar.

Now this is an easily obtainable receipt which has been hacked to bits over the years. If you substitute papaya juice for orange juice (you can use fresh or frozen papya chunks if necessary) and forget the soda and 151 floater, it is a COMPLETELY different drink, it is almost a Planters Punch! A nice drink in itself, BUT NOT A ZOMBIE! :wink:

[ Edited by: Rattiki on 2003-11-10 16:26 ]