Mai Tai mixing on YouTube

In my never ending quest to get the right Mai Tai recipe I decided to see what was being said on YouTube. Is it me or are all of these recipes wrong? I guess it depends. By the way, if any of you read that post about me getting the right Mai Tai with the St. James rum and how excited I was about that, well..back to the drawing board. So far the best Mai Tais I've had are at Trader Vic's, Mai Kai, and Chan's Dragon Inn in New Jersey. I haven't been able to accurately replicate any of them, even though I thought I was close. Chan's definitely makes their's with either Pineapple or Orange Juice. I know it's not accurate, but it's really good. So maybe I should try that. Check these out and judge for yourself on what these guys are up to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgI700aERNc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_V84WEyohM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMQ5dorAgQ8

Hi donho,

The last of those three links has the best representation of the right proportions. But he is using crappy ingredients. Use either St. James Hors d'Age, or whatever the best Agricole rum you can find, along with Appleton Estate, either 12 yr. or V/X. Use a really good orange curaçao, like Bols, or Marie Brizzard, and for orgeat, Fee's Bros. or Ferrara are decent, not great. And squeeze your own fresh lime juice. And the garnish should be fresh mint.

I hope this helps a bit.

There are other threads here that discuss Mai Tai recipes. If you can't find a better youtube, it may be time to make one...

The guy in the 3rd video is not me.

That last guy has bottled lime juice and orange juice? WTF?

How difficult can this be? I don't care if you don't use St. James and Appleton (I personally use Goslings black seal and Pyrat XO), but how hard is it to at least use the correct recipe?

2oz of rum - mix and match, your choice (although meyers and bacardi is a TERRIBLE choice)
1oz FRESH SQUEEZED lime juice
1/2oz Orange Curacao
1/4oz Orgeat
1/4oz Simple Syrup (I'm using the Depaz pure cane syrup from Martinique these days)

I mean really... It's not that hard! It's not like mixing a Zombie or something that requires 8 different ingredients.

This is a pretty good representation, but still not perfect (although Robert Hess is a cocktail god):

http://www.smallscreennetwork.com/video/81/mai_tai/

He uses 1/2oz of lime juice, which simply isn't enough, and a 1oz dark rum float (which isn't how they are served at TV's, nor how I make them).

Chrisf

I like 1/2 oz Orgeat and 1 full oz fresh lime juice in my Mai Tais. I like the Bum's recipe (1 oz each of appleton and st james), but 2 oz of Appleton all on it's own was pretty good too. More experimentation is necessary.

Garnishing with a big sprig of fresh mint is essential to the Mai Tai experience. You must make sure the mint is sticking up out of the drink, almost like a flower, so that you smell a whiff of mint with each sip. Fortunately I have a jungle of mint in my backyard... finally putting it to use.

On 2008-07-07 22:29, Chinarose wrote:
Garnishing with a big sprig of fresh mint is essential to the Mai Tai experience. You must make sure the mint is sticking up out of the drink, almost like a flower, so that you smell a whiff of mint with each sip. Fortunately I have a jungle of mint in my backyard... finally putting it to use.

I totally agree with this.

I could almost forgive the lad in #3 had he not gone out of his way to explain the Mai Tai's origin . . . and then mix it as he did. Almost!

Sadly this is the VERY BEST video I can find on making a Mai Tai. It actually gets the recipe proportions correct, but does use triple sec instead of Curacao.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-a-mai-tai-151026/

I think it is high time that one of us at least film a correctly made Mai Tai to post to youtube.

Chris

On 2008-07-09 08:47, Kona Chris wrote:

I think it is high time that one of us at least film a correctly made Mai Tai to post to youtube.

I think Martin should make one at F.I. , standing between Donny Osmond (Mormon) and Betty Ford (rehab).

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga 2008-07-09 10:02 ]

if anyone has a copy of it... there was a segment of the show Great Cocktails that was shot at Trader Vic's showing how the mai tai is made.

I made a punch bowl size Mai Tai for a party a couple of weeks ago.

Large Punchbowl 3/4 filled with cracked ice
1500 ML Appleton Estate VX
16 Whole limes juices (save juiced rinds for garnish)
400 ML Orgeat (I used Torani)
350 ML orange Curacao
1 bunch of fresh mint washed and de-stemmed
1.5 cups sugar (i used brown sugar)

pre-mix the lime juice with the sugar in a separate bowl
(this is my replacement for the simple syrup, also less water since we're using more ice than normal)
Once the sugar is dissolved you can mix all of the liquids together in a BIG bowl or pot, not the punchbowl full of ice.

This is a large amount & you may need a very large punchbowl to fit it all.
I simply filled my 1.25 gallon punchbowl 3/4 full of cracked ice and then I would replenish the booze mix and ice as needed.

A bowl of the mint sprigs and another bowl of lime rinds and I would garnish each cup of punch as it was ladled out.
It might not be full on authentic, but try hand shaking 60 cocktails for everyone and it'll take forever.

Best
Mark