Tiki & TropicalSummer

Mai Tai

Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron, Trader Vic's, Oakland, 1944

The Mai Tai is aged rum, lime, dry curaçao, orgeat and demerara syrup, shaken and served over crushed ice with mint and a spent lime shell. Nutty, citrusy and rum-forward, it is the defining tiki drink. National Mai Tai Day's drink.

  • GlassRocks
  • MethodShaken
  • Ingredients5
Mai Tai

Ingredients

Making a batch?
Servings
Spent lime shell, mint sprig and a Luxardo maraschino cherry, served with a strawGarnish
Total volume—

Directions

  1. Shake all ingredients with ice.
  2. Strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.

ToolsJiggerShakerHawthorne strainerRocks glass

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History

Trader Vic Bergeron created the Mai Tai in 1944 at his Oakland restaurant for friends visiting from Tahiti. One of them, Carrie Guild, tasted it and said "Maita'i roa ae," Tahitian for "out of this world." Donn Beach of Don the Beachcomber claimed an earlier 1933 drink by the same name, but Vic's recipe became the standard.

Making a batch? Scale it for a crowd, add dilution water, and see how many bottles to buy.
Quick sizes
How are you making it? ⓘ Batching includes dilution water. Pre-batched cocktails need added water to replace the melt from stirring or shaking. We use Jeffrey Morgenthaler's standard: 18% for spirit-forward drinks, 25% for shaken.

What you'll need to buy

Based on 750ml bottles (25.4 oz), rounded up.

Bottle math, generally

750ml bottle25.4 oz
2 oz pours per bottle12 cocktails
1.5 oz pours per bottle16 cocktails
1 oz =29.6 ml
This recipe per 750ml of spirit—

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