Post #743298 by heylownine on Tue, May 19, 2015 9:27 PM

On 2015-05-19 20:57, kkocka wrote:
In the end, I don't think crushed ice is mandatory - it's more of a preference for the particular chill and appearance of your drink. Your mai tai will still taste like a mai tai as well the rest of your drinks.

For a casual backyard luau type affair it's probably not going to make a huge difference, but the main difference with different styles of ice is dilution and that is important for a recipe's balance. A 5 second blend with 1/2 cup of crushed ice will dilute differently than a shake with full ice cubes (to say nothing of dropping a big cube in a rum old-fashioned).

I'm certainly not saying don't experiment, but one may want to tweak the recipe if the goal is to try and really emulate a given recipe.

kevin