The weather is warm­ing up and that means I’ll be fea­tur­ing the old school Trader Vic Mai Tai on my menu on occa­sion. This cock­tail dates back to the 40’s and it’s not the neon pink umbrella drink you might asso­ciate with the name Mai Tai. Hope­fully you like the taste of rum, because you won’t find any pineap­ple juice hid­ing the taste of alco­hol in this recipe.

You can’t make Trader Vic’s Mai Tai with­out orgeat syrup (pro­nounced “awr-zhat”). Orgeat is a sweet almond syrup with a lovely touch of orange and rose flower water.If you’re lucky you might be able to find a bot­tle at your local liquor store, but quite frankly noth­ing beats the home­made stuff. It’s a lot eas­ier to make than you might think too. So why not give it a shot?

How to Make Orgeat Syrup

Ingre­di­ents

• 7 oz blanched sliced almonds (no skins)
• 18 oz of water
• 2 oz of vodka
• 3 cups of sugar
• tea­spoon of rose water
• 8 dashes of Post Pro­hi­bi­tion Orange Bitters
• 1/2 tea­spoon of almond extract
• 1/8 tea­spoon or less of xan­than gum (very light dusting)

Direc­tions

1. In a bowl cover almonds with water and allow to soak for 20 min­utes. Strain and dis­card water.
2. Then add the 18 oz of water and the 2 oz of vodka, allow­ing to soak at least 3 hours or over night. I add vodka at this point to help extract the oil from the almonds. Plus the vodka will help pre­serve the syrup. If you are using the orgeat for some­thing other then cock­tails feel free to omit the vodka.
3. With a food proces­sor or hand blender, blend the almonds to release their oils.
4. Strain almonds through cheese­cloth and a sieve and col­lect the water in a sep­a­rate bowl.
5. Squeeze the almonds in the cheese­cloth to get all the liq­uid out.
6. Now take your almond water and sugar and bring to a low boil on the stove until the sugar is com­pletely dissolved.
7. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
8. You will notice the almond oil and the water tend to sep­a­rate, this is where the xan­than gum comes into play. With a whisk or hand blender incor­po­rate the xan­than gum.
9. Add the almond extract to taste. This will kick up the almond fla­vor and is not totally nec­es­sary, but I think it’s a nice touch. Also, add the rose water and orange bit­ters. You could use orange flower water here instead of a com­bi­na­tion of the orange bit­ters and rose water. Be care­ful with orange flower water because it is very strong and if you put too much your syrup will taste like perfume.
10. Bot­tle in ster­ile bottles.

If you like orgeat syrup you should also check out faler­num. Faler­num is a key ingre­di­ent in Don the Beachcomber’s Mai Tai as well as a key ingre­di­ent in many tiki cocktails.

Trader Vic’s Mai Tai

• 1 oz light rum
• 1 oz dark rum
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 3/4 oz orgeat syrup
• 1/2 oz of Cointreau
• gar­nish with mint

Add all ingre­di­ents in a cock­tail shaker, except the mint gar­nish. Shake and strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Gar­nish with fresh mint. You can also float some dark rum on top of the cock­tail if you like. I tend to exclude fancy gar­nishes such as pineap­ple or neon cherries.