Welcome to Common Man Cocktails. I’m your host Derrick Schommer. Today we’re looking at the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai.
Now, if you go back to October of 2008, our first episode, we did the Mai Tai. We did a Red Mai Tai. I used a wine glass. It was in smaller resolution, might had a little less animation to me I think at that time. This, we’re kind of revisiting it. We’ve learned a lot since then and there are different variants in the recipes so I wanted to kind of cover the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai which is a Mai Tai that has a little orange curacao.
Now Tito, he’s our sponsor so he’s going to hang out over there. Some orgeat syrup, some Jamaican rum, the only Jamaican rum I have, I have some more coming next week but all I’ve got right now is the Appleton’s, perfectly find if you’ll have Appleton’s or some other Jamaican rum, if not, choose like an Amber rum brown, dark rum, if you could get a Gold that would be even better.
The Mai Tai is said to be invented by Trader Vic and he served it in his Polynesian style Restaurants which was in Oakland around 1944. Victor Bergeron I believe was his name and he said to invent this. There are other people who contest that. I’m not here to contest anything; I’m here to make a drink. So that’s what we’re going to do.
We’re going to have some simple syrup, some lime juice, I guess some garnishes here. I’ve got a little mint sprig, look at how it stands up so nice because I grew it in my garden which is just really a barrel with mint in it. We’re going use a double tall old fashion glass. This is a baccarat that I got at some point in time, so that will work for that. I think that’s pretty much going to cover it. Let’s do that up. We’re all going to mix it all here and then we’re just going to pour it, pretty good, huh?
Alright, throw some ice in here. This is Jamaican rum, Polynesian style recipe. We’re going to have cool garnishes. I like it to be chilled all over my table. Now that was bad. I throw like a girl. Alright, so we’re going to do two ounces of Jamaican rum, let’s put that in first. Did I mention the orgeat syrup? It’s like an almond syrup. You see that a lot in the Polynesian recipes. They kind of last for every, just a pure sugarcane, so, always have one of these on hand if you’re into in Polynesian drinks such as Zombies and stuff like that and you’ll be good. Did I put the cap on? I throw that back here.
We’re going to do a half ounce of the orange curacao, did I call it blue before? I love the blue. It comes in the same bottle. Orange curacao, blue curacao, the only difference is the coloring and its intense so you’re really going to stick with the one that it calls for or else you’re going to have a blue Trader Vic Mai Tai which is not going to look right. A half ounce of the almond syrup, this stuff’s pretty thick and when you pour it on ice sometimes it freezes on it so I’m going to push it round. We’re going to do an ounce of lime juice. I squeezed this ahead of time and it’s starting to smell good. A quarter ounce of simple syrup, it’s pretty sweet.
We’ve already get the orgeat syrup so we don’t want to go. We don’t want to really get too intense. And what this is going to do is it’s going to sweeten it up to a dangerous level where you’re going to probably have people to drink these things like nothing and be really happy. Shake that up right there. Pour that in our double tall old fashion rocks glass or should we call low ball glass, the glass by many other names. Then what we’re going to do is garnish it with the sprig mint. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as intense as this but the cooler the better because Polynesia drinks are all about style. If you go back to the Zombie recipe, I believe that was the one I called for green maraschino cherries, so I still got those guys hanging around. So I figured why not use them here.
Technically I’ve seen the Trader Vic’s recipe call for all kinds of different garnishes. If you go to their website, they’re going to say, I think there’s also pineapple, I don’t have a pineapple but we get the mints, we got everything going on here. That would be your Trader Vic Mai Tai with a little spin of Common Man Cocktail on there. It’s got a nice mint there, so organic and natural, very nice. So let’s give this a try, smells very much like the Mai Tai I made before. Sweet, nutty, the almond syrup really comes right through.
Actually not as sweet as the original Mai Tai we did. I think there’s a nice coating like the after taste’s got that rum appeal to it, kind of feels like a beach. Hawaii. It’s just a very relaxing little beverage but because it’s balanced so well with the different flavors, if you really could drink this real fast, so be careful with that. It is definitely a very beautiful recipe. So there you go, that is the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai.
Also, the POM Wonderful Contest is over, Rich, Annie and Ali have won the contest. We have three to give away so I’ve emailed them. All of them have gotten back to me, they’re all within the United States and one was in Canada, check that out. So we’ll be sending that off to POm Wonderful to send out your coupon and our POM pourer. What else do we got?
This is not necessarily our contest per se but it is a contest that we wanted to help spread the word because I think it only helps everybody. It is starting I think, it’s going to be about every two weeks, they’re going to draw one of these jarring in September so I’m going to try and remind you when I can that they’re having this contest.
But it’s a Partida contest, go to the everydaydrinkers.tv/partida and we’ll bounce you off to where you need to go. You’ll be able to win in this random jarring if you’re in California, Florida, New York or Texas.
For some reason, that is their limited contest’s area scope. A lot of people on those areas so I think we’ll touch a few people. You can win this cool Agave Nectar, so I’ll be using this in a lot of our Hot Toddy. We used it in the Common Man Margarita, perfect Margarita. A cool shirt from Partida, Partida squeeze, you’ve probably seen this used in the show, we’ve got one of those recipe book for all kinds of really crazy Partida, some buttons, that’s always cool. Look at that, looks about the same size, double tall. It’s a little bigger, double tall rocks glass. Two of them both with Partida logos and you got your strainer and your bus and shaker.
And they’re also giving that all away in one of these cool bags. Kind of like this big, taking on vacations, it’s got all kinds of pockets, it’s really more made, pretty neat. So Partida, thanks for sending up the contest for everybody, not specifically to us, any body can go there but I wanted to let you guys know. I’m your host Derrick Schommer. Check us out at everydaydrinkers.tv. We’re teaching you how to drink.
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