Post #758772 by Warboys on Mon, Feb 8, 2016 2:35 PM

Third evening of Mai Tais and I'm not sure if I'm getting a taste for rum or if my variables are not consistent.

Evening 1

• Appleton V/X
• Clement 10

Delicious. First ever homemade Mai Tai and I'm never going back to bar-made cocktails again

• Smith & Cross
• Clement 10

Just as delicious, but bloody strong! This is like a Mai Tai XL. Great stuff and I'll totally use it if a friend wants something stiffer.

Evening 2

• Myers
• Mount Gay Eclipse

Going for my 'poor man's Mai Tai'. Clement and Appleton were pricey so I've taken my two cheapest bottles and tested the results. Very different taste... much more 'artificial' tasting (hard to explain) with a sticky sweetness from the Myers and an overwhelming lack of refreshment that was in the first two recipes.

Evening 3

• Appleton V/X
• Barbancourt 8 Year

This was bitterly disappointing. It was much better than the sticky sweet Myers one, but I was expecting something rivaling the VX/Clement but it was decidely untasteful. There was something so off with it, that didn't really feel like a rum mix issue. So I've got a ton of follow up questions trying to determine the source of the problem...

1. Is the Barbancourt much subtler and didn't work with the Appleton VX?
2. I ended up pouring about 2.5ml too much Orgeat and Simple Syrup... is that the difference maker?
3. I felt it was a little bit too diluted... but I don't recall keeping my crushed ice out longer than usual
4. My Limes were much less juicy and ripe than the first batch. I had to squish and roll a couple of them to really get the juice out of them. Were the limes the issue?
5. I haven't been refrigerating my Orgeat, and I've noticed a strange darker discolouration since I first bought it. I stuck it in the fridge a few days ago because I was scared about it spoiling... however I read a bunch of sites online that said it's ok to sit outside the fridge. Was cooling my Orgeat possibly a problem or do you think it went bad?
6. I drank 3 pints of beer before I walked home for 30 mins and made cocktails. Could that be a big factor?

I've been trying to keep everything as exact as possible, lab conditions, to try to build my own taste for particular rum mixes. I can really smell the difference between the brands but I don't have as much confidence in my palette so I've been trying different combos to build it up. I can't understand what it is exactly, but something felt really off with the Barbancourt+Appleton VX mix. Any ideas?