The Mai Tai ( ) is a

cocktail A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic beverage, alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more liquor, spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, Shrub (drink), shrubs, and ...

made of

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is produced i ...

Curaçao liqueur Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...

orgeat syrup Orgeat syrup is a sweet syrup made from almonds and sugar with a little rose water and/or orange flower water. It was originally made with a barley-almond blend. It has a pronounced almond taste and is used to flavor many cocktails. Orgeat syrup ...

, and

lime juice A lime is a citrus fruit, which is typically round, lime green in colour, in diameter, and contains acidic juice vesicles. There are several species of citrus trees whose fruits are called limes, including the Key lime (''Citrus aurantiifoli ...

. It is one of the characteristic cocktails in

Tiki culture Tiki culture is an American-originated art, music, and entertainment movement inspired by Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures, and by Oceanian art. Influential cultures to Tiki culture include Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia ...

History

Victor J. Bergeron claimed to have invented the Mai Tai in 1944 at his restaurant,

Trader Vic's Trader Vic's is a restaurant and tiki bar chain headquartered in Emeryville, California, United States. Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. (December 10, 1902 in San Francisco – October 11, 1984 in Hillsborough, California) founded a chain of Polynes ...

, in Oakland, California, US. Trader Vic's forerunner,

Donn Beach Donn Beach (born Ernest Raymond Gantt; February 22, 1907 – June 7, 1989) was an American adventurer, businessman, and World War II veteran who was the "founding father" of tiki culture. He is known for opening the first prototypical tiki bar, Do ...

, claimed to have instead first created it in 1933, although a longtime colleague said that Beach was actually just alleging that the Mai Tai was based on his

Q.B. Cooler The Q.B. Cooler is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of several rums (Puerto Rican dark rum, Jamaican rum, Demerara 151 proof rum), two syrups ( fassionola, falernum), fruit juices (orange, lime), and honey, ...

cocktail. Don the Beachcomber's recipe is more complex than Vic's and some believe it tastes quite different. Others believe that, despite the difference in ingredients, the Q.B. Cooler tastes quite similar. The Mai Tai was introduced in Hawaii in 1953 when Bergeron created a cocktail menu for the Matson Company hotels the

Royal Hawaiian Hotel The Royal Hawaiian Hotel is a beachfront luxury hotel located in Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. It is part of The Luxury Collection brand of Marriott International. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal ...

and

Moana Hotel The Moana Hotel is a historic hotel building in Honolulu, Hawaii, located at 2365 Kalākaua Avenue in the Waikiki neighborhood. Built in the late 19th century as the first hotel in Waikiki, the Moana opened in 1901. It is listed on the Nation ...

. The cocktail became a hit and was called the "top tourist tantalizer" in 1959. In the years thereafter, pineapple juice, orange juice, and a dark rum float became commonly used in Mai Tais produced in Hawaii. The name was allegedly taken from ''maitaʻi'', the Tahitian word for "good" or "excellence", although the drink is usually spelled as two words, sometimes hyphenated or capitalized.

Recipe

Most current recipes for Mai Tais based on Trader Vic's 1944 recipe include

, and orange liqueur (typically

orange curaçao Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

). Variants may include the addition of

amaretto Amaretto ( Italian for 'a little bitter') is a sweet Italian liqueur originating from the ''comune'' (municipality) of Saronno. Depending on the brand, it may be made from apricot kernels, bitter almonds, peach stones, or almonds, all of whi ...

falernum Falernum (pronounced ) is either a syrup liqueur or a nonalcoholic syrup from the Caribbean. It is best known for its use in tropical drinks. It contains flavors of ginger, lime, and almond, and frequently cloves or allspice. It may be thought ...

bitters A bitters (plural also ''bitters'') is traditionally an Alcoholic drink, alcoholic preparation flavored with botanical matter for a Bitterness (taste), bitter or bittersweet Flavoring, flavor. Originally, numerous longstanding brands of bitters ...

grenadine Grenadine () is a nonalcoholic bar syrup commonly used as a cocktail ingredient, distinguished by its sweetness, mild flavor, and red color. Popular in mixed drinks, grenadine syrup was traditionally made from pomegranate, but today is most p ...

, orange, pineapple and grapefruit juices, and so on. This wide variance in ingredients used exists because Trader Vic's kept the recipe unpublished for nearly 30 years, forcing some competitors to guess at the ingredients to satisfy customers, though various recipes published in newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s did include key ingredients such as orgeat, orange curaçao, and rock candy syrup. Various books from Victor Bergeron described using rum from Jamaica as well as from Martinique, which in modern usage is a , being a rum made from

sugarcane juice Sugarcane juice is the liquid extracted from pressed sugarcane. It is consumed as a beverage in many places, especially where sugarcane is commercially grown, such as Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North Africa, mainly Egypt, and also ...

rather than molasses. As noted in ''Smuggler's Cove'' by Martin Cate and Rebecca Cate, the Martinique rums used by Bergeron in the 1950s were most certainly not agricole rums. Overproof rums are sometimes added to make stronger versions, but Cate says references to such use as being from "the old way" was only because a 151 proof (75%)

demerara Demerara (; , ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state from 1792 unti ...

float was the preferred variation of a frequent elderly customer.

Culture

The Mai Tai became a popular cocktail in the 1950s–60s and many restaurants, particularly tiki-themed restaurants or bars, served them. The Mai Tai was also prominently featured in the 1961

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...

film ''

Blue Hawaii ''Blue Hawaii'' is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy drama film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written Amer ...

''. The Mai Tai was named the official cocktail of the city by the

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

city council.https://oakland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=1229120&GUID=8A4E5F00-8DEF-4485-B669-A0DC57001EA0

References

External links

{{Authority control Californian cuisine Cocktails with fruit liqueur Cocktails with lime juice Cocktails with rum Cocktails with triple sec or curaçao Cuisine of the Western United States Hawaiian alcoholic drinks Tiki culture Tiki drinks