When Making a Mai Tai

[saltgrassbear]

What is the best Curacao and Orgeat to use. Using premium Rum and run of the mill ingredients would be a crime. My wife doesn't care for rum neat as I do. So I want to make the best Mai Tai possible.

SGB

[Paulipbartender]

Frankly I'd worry more about the rum. You need a massively full flavoured, high proof aged rum to get the requisite punch. You're trying to get as close as possible to the JW&N 17 year old - potty and powerful

Curacao - most that are quite dry will do
Orgeat - Monin works perfectly well
Cane syrup - try the La Mauny or most will do.

Rum's the ting

[Edward Hamilton]

La Mauny syrup isn't available in the US and you won't find the flavorful Wray & Nephew rum anywhere. As a substitute I'd suggest El Dorado 12 year old, Appleton Extra, El Dorado 5 year old, Appleton VX or Inner Circle Green Dot. Any other suggestions?

[Scottes]

Check out Beachbum Berry's $100 Mai Tai recipe:

http://www.beachbumberry.com/100dollarmaitai/

I swear by it. Well, I swear by the rums used, and the general recipe. I make my own orgeat because nothing else comes anywhere close, and my own rock candy syrup because it's way too easy and cheap. For the orange liqueur, I've used Cointreau, Senior Curacao of Curacao and Patron Citronge (which I prefer). But I finally managed to get a bottle of Marie Brizard's Orange Curacao but have yet to do a taste test.

For the rums - use what tastes good, regardless of price or "premiumness."

As to orgeat, if you're willing to go through some work, make your own:
http://fxcuisine.com/default.asp?Display=26
or
http://scottesrum.com/category/ramblings/the-gnomon-rulez-homemade-orgeat-and-more/
The second link includes a recipe for Rock Candy Syrup.

And if you're interested, I did a big comparison of Orange Liqueurs a while back, before I got the Marie Brizard:
http://scottesrum.com/category/comparisons/orange-liqueur-throwdown/

If you're not going to make your own orgeat, I'd strongly recommend keeping away from the Fee Brothers' stuff, which is nasty IMHO. Trader Vic's is no longer worth the shipping charge from what I've heard. The Bum now recommends Premiere Essence but I don't know of any place to get it. Torani almond is off, Monin isn't bad, and Finest Call is supposed to be decent.


Lastly, I'll post a few paragraphs from a gentleman I know who's done a lot of studying of the Mai Tai. I trust his judgment, beyond doubt:

I offered this idea before and some people laughed, others tried it, some swear by it......

Step 1 - Grab your two bottles of rum and remove the caps.

Step 2 - Look around and make sure you are alone. If their are people around, make sure they are your friends. Or at least that they know you well enough they wont find this process odd. Odd for you I mean....

Step 3 - Place the necks of the two bottles close together.

Step 4 - Sniff your two bottles together.

When you are done laughing at this suggestion, read on.

Why are you sniffing rum?

Well, if your two rums smell like two rums, you have exactly that.... two rums.

If, however, your two rums together smell yummy (more so than just some rum, you lush), like something a bit more than just two rums, you have a good pair to try in a Mai-Tai.

Specifically to the Mai-tai, do this same bottle-sniff trick and include your bottle of orgeat. If the three together make you wonder if you really can snort alcohol since you already have your nose right there, you have found a winning combination.

Your success will vary accordingly. I only guarantee that you will look foolish sniffing rum bottles.

But! Specifically to your question ('bout dam time! ya long winded freak!....) Rum Pairings.

My completely biased and unabashed opinions for suitable Mai-tai rum pairings are:

Appelton Estate VX and Saint James Ambre
Appelton Dark and Saint James Hors'd Age (sp?) Black Label
Appelton Estate XO and Cruzan Estate Single Barrel
Coruba and Oronoco (comes across as spicy, more research is needed)
Brugal Dark and Cruzan Single Barrel
Ron-Rico and "Old Oak Gold" (this pair was tasty, but a bit weak. A dash of orange bitters helped)

I have many more pairings I have tried, but this list are the only ones I am willing to try again.

Remember, and this is important, this list is from my bar and involves my taste for rum and is what I like. You may not like any of these. But, you have a starting point and I am hoping that you will share what you discover.

And, here is a very long discussion about the Mai-Tai....

http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=20200&forum=10&start=0

The Rum discussion starts on page four or five.

[Mark B.]

I go by the recipe in Berry's Grog Log and use Appleton V/X, St. James Ambre, Senior Curacao, and Torani orgeat. I have a West Indian lime tree in my back yard so good fresh lime juice is never a problem. I understand that most people will consider the Torani syrup to be the weak link in my rendition of this drink. But it's still a pretty dang good mai tai nevertheless, far better than anything I've ever had in a bar or restaurant.

[saltgrassbear]

Looks like I have some mixing to do. Looks like most recipes call for two kinds of rum. Why is this?

SGB

[Edward Hamilton]

The recipe calls for a light and a dark heavy rum. For the dark rum, Myers's is one of the most commonly used. Goslings has more flavor as well as the coloring. Coruba from Jamaica is another choice for the dark rum.

[Scottes]

Looks like I have some mixing to do. Looks like most recipes call for two kinds of rum. Why is this?
It's an attempt to recreate the original 17-year-old rum used, and/or to add more complexity. Single-rum Mai Tais are usually a bit flat.

[Tiare]

Thank you for the recipe of home made orgeat. I made a try a while ago with another recipe and it failed because it started to ferment. Maybe the bottle wasn`t clean enough? I used almonds that I blanched and etc so it felt like a bit of a waste of time when I had to discard it..and it also had a nice taste before it fermented.
This time I`m going to use the mineral water and be more careful with clean bottles.
But at least my falernum became very nice:)

[Scottes]

Adding some mild white rum will help, as will the refrigerator.

[RumBarPhilly]

I have much to learn about these, how you say, Mai Tais...

I, too, have looked more into the other ingredients than the rum. I will say though, that the Whaler's Dark rum can be paired with any rum and smell yummy. Now the research to find the more suitable light rum to go with it. Perhaps Wray & Nephew, or maybe One Barrel, or maybe the Appleton V/X.

Of those 3, which would work best?

[Scottes]

Step 1 - Grab your two bottles of rum and remove the caps.

Step 2 - Look around and make sure you are alone. If their are people around, make sure they are your friends. Or at least that they know you well enough they wont find this process odd. Odd for you I mean....

Step 3 - Place the necks of the two bottles close together.

Step 4 - Sniff your two bottles together.
It really does work...

[Tiare]

Thanks! the fridge, yes a good idea, the almonds maybe needs cooler storage..
I first thought it could be stored in room temp.
I have a book called Caribbean pantry where there is a recipe for falernum and they say it can be stored in room temp indefinitively (did I spell this right?) and my falernum is just fine after 2 months in room temp.
I think I have mixed these up..
On to the making of a new batch of orgeat...:D

[Scottes]

The falernum probably contains a good amount of alcohol, right? That will keep things from fermenting. The orgeat, on the other hand, contains quite a bit of sugar and no alcohol. A dirty bottle might have some yeasts in it, or wild yeasts might have been floating in the air while you made it, and this can easily get it to start fermenting.

[Edward Hamilton]

There are a number of falernums but most have their origin in Barbados. The most popular in Barbados is John D Taylor's Velvet Falernum (http://ministryofrum.com/rumdetails.php?r=513) which is bottled at 11% abv. This low alcohol content isn't a very good preservative.

[Scottes]

This low alcohol content isn't a very good preservative.
But isn't it enough to stop fermentation? Actually, that's a little low, but 11% ABV should stop most "normal" yeasts from acting on the sugars.

[Edward Hamilton]

You're right that i11% alcohol will stop most fermentation but it won't stop other bacteria from growing in the mixture.

[Paulipbartender]

The closest Mai Tais to the 17 year old we've tasted here have included; Pussers,
Appleton 21
or the Silver Seal from Guyana bottled in Scotland (the 28 year old is very close to the W&N 17, 32 year old too woody).

And Ed, I tasted a bottle of John D Taylors Falernum from the 70's the other day and it was absolutely out of this world - far, far superior to what is available now. It's disappointing that advances and the global market have so diminished the bottled product............economics over artisanship.

[saltgrassbear]

It would be nice to be able to taste the W&N 17 for comparisons. If they just made a few bottles at a high price, why don't they market it again. Thanks for the tips on taste tests.

SGB

[Paulipbartender]

They can't make the W&N 17 anymore. JW&N changed their production facilities in the 40's to modernise and include column distillation. The result was they couldn't reproduce the 17 year old.

Far as we know there are only 4 bottles in existence....including ours

[Tiare]

Adding some mild white rum will help, as will the refrigerator.

I made my new batch of orgeat this weekend following the recipe from the link scottes provided and added some white rum to it. Its a real nice orgeat with a subtle almond taste and I got 2 bottles, so i will keep one in the fridge and the other on the shelf to see if they store differently.

Now i only need some new orange curacao..i cannot find Seniors so i will buy DeKuyper. But it would be interesting to try to make my own..

[Scottes]

Another Mait-Tai-loving friend of mine considers DeKuyper to be pure garbage, and uses Bols instead. I still have to crack my bottle of Bols to compare the two...

[Tiare]

I cannot find any orange curacao at all in my alcohol regulated country..but I can easily order DeKuyper from Germany and hopefully I can find Bols too, it would be interesting to compare them.But what I`m really curious about is the Senors..and I don`t know how to be able to get a bottle of that.