Tiki Thermos Solutions

Hey guys,

I'm going on a trip with some friends and plan to make a pretty big Mai Tai (750ml) and keep it in a thermos. The thermos does a great job of keeping things cold but I'm still worried about ice dilution.

Have you guys experimented with massive, long-term cocktails on the move? I'm wondering what the best option is. The options I see are...

1. filter the ice out (pouring through a sieve)
2. leave it in
3. leave some of it in.
4. make it the night before, remove the ice, and cool it the night before I go out.
5. Add ice throughout the day and give it a good shake... my theory is that it will do what a Shaker would and cool the drink, but I am talking out of my ass so correct me if I'm wrong :wink:

Any help is much appreciated!

or....

6. Drink the whole damn thing before setting out. You should wake up just about arrival time at your destination.

howlinowl

If it was me, I would chill the mai tai mix as much as possible and prechill the thermos with some ice water. Then, the next day I would pour out the ice water and pour in the mai tai mix, and carry some ice in a small cooler or another thermos for final serving.

As delicious as Mai Tais are, they don't really work well in a large batch.

I would opt for a different drink. Mai Tai's don't batch well and dilution and aeration is so important, not to mention the mint, I just don't see it working in a thermos/travel situation.

On 2016-08-16 06:41, Jeff Bannow wrote:
If it was me, I would chill the mai tai mix as much as possible and prechill the thermos with some ice water. Then, the next day I would pour out the ice water and pour in the mai tai mix, and carry some ice in a small cooler or another thermos for final serving.

This is the way to go. I would take the others information about mas-mixed Mai Tai's into consideration though too. I have done it, and had success, but only by not including the lime, and adding that at consumption time. Though doing this adds complexity that you probably are trying to avoid.

I make ice coffee and carry it in a metal contiga travel mug (get the one with the screw-on top, so no leaking), and I find that there is very little ice melt even hours later.

You might be able to get by for a few hours using metal coffee cups, especially if you carry them in a lunchbox cooler with a few ice packs.

On 2016-08-18 13:10, rummy_dearest wrote:
I make ice coffee and carry it in a metal contiga travel mug (get the one with the screw-on top, so no leaking), and I find that there is very little ice melt even hours later.

GREAT suggestion, rummy_dearest! - I hadn't thought of that. Yes, the Contigo travel mugs work VERY well. I put iced coffee into mine every morning during the hot summer months. If you want a larger volume of drink, then you should consider buying the biggest size online (24 oz) since stores are often out of the big version because they fly off the shelves so fast.

I just re-read the first post in this thread. Thermos bottles ARE well-insulated, so I don't think you'll have any problem using a Thermos. Couple extra thoughts if I were to do this:

1. Fruit juices are easy to rinse out. Anything with a fatty ingredient like Coco Lopez requires soap solution to clean it when you're done. I never put fatty stuff into anything which is hard to clean, like flasks.
2. The longer you have the ice in your thermos the more dilution you'll get. With a well-insulated Thermos you should be fine for a few hours, however it will eventually water down the drink. I would expect 3-4 really good hours with less acceptable dilution after that amount of time has passed. Of course, start with as-cold-as-possible liquid before you add the ice.
3. Thermoses (Thermosii?) sometimes have a small mouth, and this can be a problem with ice going in and out of the bottle.

Let us know how it goes, how well your container worked, and how quickly you drank all 750ml.

Cheers!