Mai Tai

The Mai Tai was where the project stopped heating up. The house favorite uses the Kevin Crossman four-rum blend, fresh lime, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao, rich demerara syrup, and Jeff’s homemade orgeat. A 100% Hampden Estate 1753 version tied it at five stars, but the Crossman blend won on balance.

Jeff’s Thoughts

This is the drink: lime, almond, orange, deep rum character, and enough sweetness to bind everything without turning it into fruit punch. The rum must remain the star. While we have made the recipe in the book using the excellent Denezin Merchant's Reserve 8 Year Martin Cate helped design exactly for this purpose, and it is excellent and IMHO the best one bottle solution for this drink, I like mixing rums more as you get to feel like a mad Mai Tai scientist. Hence, this recipe is not the one in the book, but instead the Kevin Crossman Ultimate Mai Tai Blend which I beleive gives the best balance of aged richness, Jamaican funk, overproof depth, and integration. The all-Hampden 1753 version was also a five—louder, less balanced, and unapologetically funky. Equal parts Coruba, Rhum Neisson Agricole Blanc, and OFTD ranked third and felt closer to the classic Smuggler’s Cove vision. Hamilton Jamaican Gold with Rhum Neisson was the lightest, too banana-forward, and short on aged-rum depth and funk. The homemade orgeat began with 300 g water and 3 Tbsp JOI almond concentrate filtered through a Chemex overnight; 200 g of that almond milk was combined with 400 g sugar and 1½ tsp each orange flower water, rose water, and almond extract. This was a very careful and exacting scientific survey—exactly how no one has ever described a night involving four Mai Tais.

Stasi’s Thoughts

To me, the Mai Tai is the classic tiki drink. It’s fruity, bright, and really balanced. The assertive lime and creamy homemade orgeat give it shoulders. I’m not great at picking apart one rum from another, but I know this blend works—and this one is a five.