Well, shoot. As I’ve said before, I tend toward dogmatic
when it comes to cocktail names. The
classic example is the Wisconsin Old Fashioned, which is a completely different
drink than an Old Fashioned. If you make
a different thing, my thinking goes, give it a different name. The Mai Tai is classic tiki drink that’s rum,
lime juice, orgeat, and orange liqueur.
Trader Vic didn’t publish the recipe for this fantastically popular
cocktail for 30 years, leaving others to try and recreate it using
guesswork. That, along with the
simplicity and flexibility of the recipe, have made it one of the most
riffed-upon cocktails in all of tiki. A
little tweak here and there, and sure, maybe you still have a Mai Tai. But when a third of the drink is Campari??? Nope.
Unfortunately for my inner
curmudgeon, I really like this concoction.
It’s bitter and citrusy, with almost a grapefruit character. Its bright pink color belies the long astringent
tail. And the cocktail, invented by
Brooklyn bartender Jeremy Ortel, is well-established, so I can’t just change
the name. Well, Bitter Mai Tai it is
then. I’ll have another. Cheers!
Recipe
0.75 oz Jamaican rum (I used Smith & Cross)
0.75 oz orgeat
0.5 oz orange liqueur (I used Pierre Ferrand dry curacao)
1 oz lime juice
-Shake ingredients with a cup of crushed or pebbly ice. Dump into old fashioned glass, then fill with additional ice. Optional: garnish with a sprig of mint.
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