The Miksologist

Making a Tiki drink has been on my Miksology bucket list since I started getting serious about this hobby. The thing about Tiki drinks is that they can seem overwhelming. 3 kinds of rum? 4 types of citrus juice? Pimento dram? I don’t have time for this.

*goes to bar and can’t decide which of the 8 bourbons would make a good Old Fashioned*

In reality it’s not that difficult. Sure, some ingredients might be used significantly less frequently than others. But really, how hard is it to get canned pineapple juice, some limes, lemons, and a grapefruit or two? After more reading, only three rums are *really* needed: a dark (Meyers), a gold, and a white (I use Flor de Cana).

Having gathered up the courage (and tiny paper umbrellas) I decided to tackle one of the venerated cornerstones of the Tiki world – the Mai Tai. I found a recipe that looked tasty and called for ingredients that I had. The recipe can be found at the Post Prohibition blog.

A few notes about it: It was too sour. Maybe it had something to do with my homemade falernum, but it needed sweetening. Enter simple syrup and a splash of pineapple juice (my wife’s idea) and goddamn, I have to say I surprise even myself sometimes. It is darker than I expected, but then my falernum is quite dark so that probably discolored it. Whatever, it ended up being delicious.

I then poked around some other books for recipes and realized there is no standard Mai Tai recipe. Wikipedia confirms this. In fact, my variation doesn’t conform to the present-day “definition” of a Mai Tai since neither orgeat nor orange curacao are used.

What I’m saying is, no one can agree upon what a Mai Tai is and I feel lied to.

Aloha.