Welcome to the Tiki Central 2.0 Beta. Read the announcement
Tiki Central logo
Celebrating classic and modern Polynesian Pop

Tiki Central / Tiki Drinks and Food / Ronrico Mai-Tai (1962)

Post #808703 by kevincrossman on Tue, Apr 4, 2023 12:02 PM

You are viewing a single post. Click here to view the post in context.

This is from a print-ad circa 1962 and is noteworthy for a few reasons.

Firstly, it is a very early printed Mai Tai recipe, substantially similar to others from the mid-late 1950s. This was the original "Hawaiian Mai Tai" style that featured a split base of light rum paired with a flavorful dark Jamaica rum. I can assure you the Myers's of that era was quite flavorful, and issued at robust 97 proof! A "jigger" in this time period was usually 1 oz.

As is typical of these early Hawaiian Mai Tais, the sweeteners were used in equal portions. Dash in this case being equal to ¼ oz. While the cocktail pictured does seem to be somewhat reminiscent of a fruit salad, it is also noteworthy that there's no pineapple or orange juice. Remember, the Hawaiian Mai Tai was not born with pineapple juice.

1 jigger Ronrico White
1 jigger Myers’s Jamaica Rum
Juice of One Lime
1 dash Orgeat
1 dash Simple Syrup
1 dash Orange Curacao

I love the line "Don't waste your time making it". The person writing the copy also misspelled "Myers" rum, though they surely weren't the first and far into the future people will still be misspelling it!

ronrico-maitai-1962

[ Edited by kevincrossman on 2023-04-04 12:02:42 ]