Name: The Greatest Mai Tai
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 1 servings
Ingredients: 1 oz aged Jamaican rum; 1 oz aged Martinique or agricole rum; 3/4 oz fresh lime juice; 1/2 oz orange curacao; 1/2 oz orgeat syrup; 1/4 oz simple syrup; 1 cup, plus more for serving crushed ice; 1, for garnish fresh mint sprig; 1 half, for garnish spent lime shell

The Greatest Mai Tai

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Bigly says

Pay attention. We need to talk about the Mai Tai. The GREATEST Mai Tai in the history of Mai Tais — and there have been a LOT of Mai Tais. More than any cocktail in the tiki canon. The tiki people will tell you. I've talked to tiki people — very serious people, they wear shirts with parrots on them and they don't care what you think, I respect it — and most of the Mai Tais being served on planet Earth right now are CRIMES. Crimes against the cocktail. Crimes against rum. Crimes against the pineapple, which by the way has done nothing wrong and deserves better.

The sad bars, the cruise-ship bars, the all-inclusive resort bars, they'll tell you a Mai Tai is rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine. That is not a Mai Tai. That is a fruit punch. A sad pink fruit punch with an umbrella in it that you serve to children at a birthday party. The real Mai Tai — the 1944 Mai Tai, Trader Vic's Mai Tai, the original — has NO pineapple juice. None. Zero. Many people don't know this. They've been lied to. By bartenders. By menus. By their own families. It's a tragedy.

What the real Mai Tai has is rum — two rums, because one rum is for amateurs — lime, orgeat (which is almond syrup, and orgeat is the secret weapon, most bartenders won't even MENTION orgeat, they're afraid of it, they think their customers can't handle it, sad), and orange liqueur. That's it. Four ingredients. Four. And it is the greatest cocktail ever shaken by a human hand. Not even close. A slaughter. Game over.

Ingredients

1 ozaged Jamaican rum(Appleton Estate 8 or similar)
1 ozaged Martinique or agricole rum(or a second aged rum if you can't find it)
3/4 ozfresh lime juice(fresh, never the green plastic bottle, never)
1/2 ozorange curacao
1/2 ozorgeat syrup(the almond syrup, the secret weapon)
1/4 ozsimple syrup(optional, only if your lime is very tart)
1 cup, plus more for servingcrushed ice
1, for garnishfresh mint sprig
1 half, for garnishspent lime shell

Steps

1
Squeeze a fresh lime, reserving one of the spent shells for garnish.
2
Add both rums, the lime juice, orange curacao, orgeat, and simple syrup (if using) to a cocktail shaker.
3
Fill the shaker with crushed ice. Shake hard for 10-12 seconds until well chilled.
4
Pour the entire contents — ice and all — into a double old-fashioned glass.
5
Top with additional crushed ice to fill the glass and form a small dome.
6
Garnish with the spent lime shell sitting on the ice (cut-side down) and a fresh sprig of mint slapped between your palms to release the oils. Serve with a short straw.

One more thing

This is the Mai Tai. This is THE Mai Tai. You drink one of these on a Saturday afternoon and the lawn doesn't need to be mowed, the email can wait, the world becomes a kinder place. People walk up to you and say, 'You seem relaxed.' You tell them why. You tell them about the orgeat. You spread the gospel. That's how we win — one converted Mai Tai drinker at a time. Slap the mint. Sip the rum. Tremendous.