IBA Official Cocktail | |
---|---|
Type | Cocktail |
Primary alcohol by volume | |
Served | On the rocks; poured over ice |
Standard garnish | |
Standard drinkware | Highball glass |
IBA specified ingredients* |
|
Preparation | Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into glass. Garnish and serve with straw. |
* Mai Tai recipe at International Bartenders Association |
pineapple spear, mint leaves and lime peel
The Mai Tai is an alcoholic cocktail based on rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat syrup and lime juice, associated with Polynesian-style settings.
"Maita'i" is the Tahitian word for "good"; but the drink is spelled as two words, sometimes hyphenated or capitalized.
Victor J. Bergeron claimed to have invented the Mai Tai in 1944 at his restaurant, Trader Vic's, in California. Trader Vic's rival, Don the Beachcomber, claimed to have created it in 1933 at his then-new bar named for himself (later a famous restaurant) in Hollywood. Don the Beachcomber's recipe is more complex than that of Vic's and tastes quite different.
The Trader Vic's story of its invention is that the Trader (Victor J. Bergeron) created it one afternoon for some friends who were visiting from Tahiti. One of those friends, Carrie Guild, tasted it and cried out: "Maita'i roa ae!" (literally "very good!", figuratively "Out of this world! The best!")—hence the name.
In 1953 the Matson Navigation Company (now Matson, Inc.) commissioned Victor Bergeron to create a drink for their new Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Victor then made a variation on the Mai Tai recipe adding pineapple juice; this variant is still served today at the hotel.
There are many recipes for Mai Tais. Eleven of them, including three versions of Trader Vic's, as well as the recipe of Don the Beachcomber, can be found at .
45 ml aged Jamaican rum
15 ml Orgeat syrup
15 ml Triple Sec
30 ml fresh lime juice
Served, garnished, over crushed ice.
The Mai Tai became such a popular cocktail in the 1950s–60s that many restaurants, particularly tiki-themed restaurants or bars, served them. The Mai Tai was also prominently featured in the Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii.