Mai Tai – Trader Vic’s Version
Glassware: Chilled Cocktail Glass
Mixing Method:
Ingredients:
3/4 oz. Dark Rum1
3/4 oz. Golden Rum
1/2 oz. Orange Curacao (or Triple Sec)
1/4 oz. Orgeat Syrup
Juice of 1 Lime (freshly squeezed)
1/2 oz. Simple Syrup (or 2 oz. Sour Mix)
Garnish: Fresh Mint Sprig
The classic 1944 recipe: rum, lime, orgeat, orange curacao, simple syrup
Copyright © Up or on the Rocks – Mai Tai Cocktail
Is there an EARLIER version of the Mai Tai? According to many, and I’m coming around to agreeing with them now, Don “the Beachcomber” Beach had a Mai Tai before Trader Vic. As a matter of fact, Trader Vic (Vic Bergeron) WORKED FOR Don the Beachcomber years before becoming Trader Vic and opening his own bars! Don Beach’s Version is in the Video Below:
Now, while the bartender in the video above says Don Beach’s Mai Tai has 16 (secret) ingredients I have been able to find one recipe that has 8. The only way to find out for sure might be to get a job there, unless top management makes the mixes and even the bartenders don’t know.
Mai Tai – Don Beach’s Version
Glassware: House Specialty or Collins with 1 Cup Crushed Ice
Mixing Method: Shake and strain over Crushed Ice
Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz. Myers’s Plantation Rum
1 oz. Cruzan Silver Rum
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/4 oz. Falernum
1 oz. Grapefruit Juice
3/4 oz. Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
2 Dashes Angostura Bitters
1 Dash Pernod
Trader Vic’s Mai Tai:
Many know-nothings and wanna-be sound like experts who make the most screwed up phony, fake, fraud Mai Tais ever imagined claim Vic didn’t invent the Mai Tai and that this original, signature version is wrong. Crack open your copy of “Tiki Style” to page 127 (also found in “The Book of Tiki”) where you will find the following sworn statement by Carrie Wright (previously Carrie Guild):
“I, too, hereby solemnly swear that on a summer night in 1944 Trader Vic served us a delightfully-flavored drink in an oversized glass filled with fine ice and asked us to suggest an appropriate Tahitian name.
One sip, and my natural reaction was to say ‘Mai Tai-Roa Ae’, which in Tahitian means ‘Out of this world – the best’ … Well, that was that! Vic named the drink ‘Mai Tai’.” It was signed “Carrie Wright”, Oakland-1970.
The entire page is devoted to the 1970 lawsuit against the Sun-Vac Corporation, and since sworn statements are typically submitted during legal proceedings one can surmise that was the purpose of this statement. On the same page you will also find a quaint picture of an elderly Trader Vic and Carrie in what may be the original Trader Vic location.
Finally, it is common practice when companies introduce new products to file trade mark or copyright applications so I wouldn’t be surprised if Sun-Vac did so when they introduced their Mai Tai product. If you read my post carefully you will see that I qualified it with “probably”. Since Trader Vic wrote in 1976 of his disgust of those who tried to copyright the Mai Tai, and since on this occasion he had to take legal action against Sun-Vac, it is likely that they are the ones who did so.
Footnotes 👇
- The original 17 Year Old J. Wray Nephew Jamaican Rum used in the Trader Vic’s original version of the Mai Tai no longer exists. There are 5 bottles left in the world as of this moment, one went for auction at $55,000. So we use a mix[↩]
