Vic's ORIGINAL mai tai now available **incl. 17-year-old WRAY & NEPHEW!**

It can be yours for only....$1500! A hotel in Belfast has put this on the menu, at a price currently tagged as "The Most Expensive Cocktail in the World."

Wayne Curtis has the story here at his blog:
http://republicofrum.blogspot.com/2007/02/original-mai-tai-at-price.html

It's really interesting to note that there's been a new run of Wray & Nephew Reserve. Also - if you've not read Wayne's book "AND A BOTTLE OF RUM..." then you're missing out. Terrific read!

Cheers,
Rupe

Thanks for posting that. Gee...'ya think you get to keep the glass? :wink:

In case you miss the tiny link at the bottom of that blog...here's the URL of the newspaper story:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2241977.ece#

Hears another earlier link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/18/ireland.cocktail/index.html

Hi Rupe!

It's really interesting to note that there's been a new run of Wray & Nephew Reserve.

This is not a new run, there were only 6 bottles available which came from the original batch made for Trader Vic, the Rums actual name being "Trader Vics Personal Selection".
1 bottle Sits at Merchant Hotel, Bar Gurus Ben Reid and Angus Winchester have one each (both Gone)and James Robinson from Appleton had one.
Another was decanted into smaller amounts of which we had one, Joy Spence gave another to Trader Vics here in London that sits in their display cabinet, TikiDrone had another that he won at the first London Luau and had made into Mai Tais last year at Trailer Happiness and the rest is at the Wray and Nephew offices.
The other belongs to another Bartender that I can't remember.
The word is that no more will be available, even though as far as I know there is more in the barrel the bottles came from.
So basically, out of the original 6 bottles, only about a bottle remains in all as two business men apparently celebrated a deal with 2 Mai Tais at the Merchant hotel according to my sources.

I'm going to raise my hand and put on my Dunce Cap for this one:

Can anyone tell me why this rum was discontinued? Seems to me it would be more popular now than back in the 40's & 50's. Certainly, there has been plenty of time (over 40 years now) to get up batches of this "Trader Vics Personal Selection" for the future and beyond. Doesn't Appleton Estates have the original blending formula? Huh? Huh?

It probably is just a matter of will. Getting one barrel of 17 year old rum likely requires aging 4+ barrels of the best rum you make. Each year, your barrel of rum will diminish as it ages. So, after a few years, you end up taking two barrels to make one barrel and so on. Imagine the sort of work it takes to age a rum 17 years... It's just hard to do.

so I thought the most expensive cocktail was at the Hemingway bar at the Ritz in Paris for 400 euros (a sidecar with very old cognac).

They have the Guinness book of record authenticity frame. I went there monday, it's the best place for cocktails in Paris (also the most expensive place for cocktails I ever went to, regular prices are 24 euros...)

And a bottle of rum... is an excellent reading. I loved it, you're right.

On 2007-02-07 06:50, GentleHangman wrote:
Can anyone tell me why this rum was discontinued?

It was discontinued because Trader Vic found another supplier.
The Appleton Estate does have all the Blending info still stored away and could reproduce the same rum again, although you would have to wait 17 years.
The other problem is they also only produce blends for people under very special circumstances, Chris Blackwell founder of Island Records and owner of some of the finest Houses(Goldeneye) on Jamaica is one.

Isn't Saint James' Hors D'Age rum a blend of 'Very Old Rums' ? They seem to manage quite nicely.

I think I remember being told what happens a lot of times is that companies top end blends are made from one barrel of their normal high end bottles that they sell and then they add a cup (I'm sure it's more that a cup, but you get the point) of their reserve to that and sell it as the exclusive small batch reserve blend. It's kind of like the Kiss Comic Book that was printed with their blood.

I'm just saying . . . it's been 40-50 years . . . . one would think that if the "Trader Vics Personal Selection" had really been that popular. . . there should be a pretty good stock by now especially with all the 'Mai Tai' publicity through the years. I'd read that TV stopped using the Wray & Nephew because supply was short - well, to my way of thinking they've had plenty of time to catch up! Appleton makes a 21 year old rum, don't they? So.....

...only about a bottle remains in all as two business men apparently celebrated a deal with 2 Mai Tais at the Merchant hotel according to my sources.

Make that 3 now.

From the Feb 6th Belfast Telegraph news story in the link in my post above:

To date only two of the cocktails have been sold, although a third was made yesterday to commemorate its entry into the record books.

:)

I don't know if 17YOs original strength was the same as the what is around now, or whether it has aged more and strengthened, but it is 76% proof which makes for an extremely stong drink if used on its own. Although the taste is something else, it couldn't be said it is an easy going rum. Maybe this could be part of the reason for change, to make it more palatable.
Also if it was made again it , like 21YO, would be fairly expensive and be better off drank as a sipping rum.

I came across this, regarding a 15 year old rum:

"Interestingly, at the end of 15 years of aging in wood, only about 7% of the original rum remains in the barrel, the balance will have evaporated into the air. Thus it took the equivalent of about 16 bottles of rum to produce this single bottle of 15 year old Pusser’s !"

17 year old is even more obviously

Could this all mean that the original 17YO J Wray & Nephew rum that Vic used for the creation of the Mai Tai was intended to be a 'sipping' rum? I would assume then, that future reproduction of the original recipe was doomed from the start - when the original J. Wray & Nephew rum no longer was available that then became the death-knell for the "Original Mai Tai" and only reasonable copies would prevail in the future. Tis a pity. Despite all the recipe investigations and analysis . . . we'll only just come 'close' to the original . . . but never actually attain it . . . unless you are willing to plop down $1500 plus shell out for a trip to Belfast! Again . . . tis a pity.

  Hi all,
Actually, seventeen year old rums aren't that unusual. Unless I'm mistaken, Flor de Cana and Ron Botran both market rums in this age catagory. They're pretty good rums, too. Note that these are both spanish style rums from mainland Central America, so they're quite diferent from the Wray & Nephew rum made in the english style on Jamaica, mon.

  The reasons for the differences in these rums is due both to the style of rum and the georgaphy of the regions where they are aged. Spanish rums are typically lighter flavored, cleaner rums. Bacardi is a well known spanish type. British rums are heavier, full bodied rums with a more comples flavor profile. Geography comes into play in the aging process. As a spirti ages in wood barrels, part of the spirit evaporates. This "angel's share" is much more pronounced in higher temperatures, so a rum aged at sea level in the tropics will lose more to evaporation than a rum aged at altitude in a country like Guatamala.A rum aged in a cooler climate ages more slowly, and the flavor is more subtle. A rum aged for many years in the tropics tastes more "woody", because the barrel has more influence on the end product.

  Try Ron Botran's twenty three year old rum. It's a great rum. HiTime Wines in Costa Mesa carries it for something like $30. You can't go wrong with a price like that.

    Dan

Dan (at) onebarrelrum (dot) com

A little local press, via the SFGate website, for this infamous Mai Tai:

*I found myself in the Merchant Hotel in Belfast recently. It's a very fine hotel indeed. I'm tempted to say that it's posh and elegant and opulent and splendid and sumptuous and swank because it's all of those things, but there's something special about the Merchant that makes you forget that you're in a highfalutin joint - the atmosphere there is just about as down home and friendly as you'll find in any neighborhood tavern. You tend to forget your surroundings and just get on with having a great time when you're in the bar there.

On my third evening in Belfast I arrived at the Merchant's bar to meet up with my cousin and his son, who had popped over to Belfast from England to hang out with me for a few days; an old friend from New York was there and a few newfound Belfast bartender types were in attendance, too. I was about to order my usual Manhattan when Sean Muldoon, the beverage manager at the Merchant, suggested that I have a mai tai instead.

I had a mai tai the likes of which you won't find anywhere else in the world. It was whipped up for me by Jack McGarry, a splendid specimen of a Belfast bartender. The drink was heavenly. Just heavenly...*

Click right about HERE to read the full article.

Oh Danny Boy,
midnite