- 1 oz gold rum
- 1 1/2 oz Meyers’s Plantation rum
- 1 oz grapefruit juice
- 3/4 oz lime juice
- 1/2 oz Cointreau
- 1/4 oz falernum
- 6 drops Pernod or Herbsaint
- Dash of Angostura bitters
Shake well with crushed ice.
Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass.
Garnish with 4 mint sprigs
Recipe by Don the Beachcomber circa 1933.
Hey! After eating and drinking almost weekly at Don the Beachcombers in Calilfornia when growing up I can attest that your mai tai isn’t even close to what I observed being whipped up at the bar over many years. Try again!
Ron, this recipe is from the book Beach Bum Berry Remixed by Jeff Berry. I’d love to hear about the recipe you encountered. Care to share?
if you leave out the grapefruit, the recipe is Don the Beachcomber’s Test Pilot, an amazing and perfect drink. My understanding is that this “mai tai” recipe appeared and disappeared early, and the subsequent Mai Tai with orgeat, by Trader Vic, is what we now know as a mai tai. Well, those of us who send back anything delivered with pineapple juice.
It is too bad this drink has a confusing name — it is worth your time to try it out. Just don’t expect a Mai Tai!
What is Meyers’s Plantation rum? Are you referring to the popular dark rum from Diageo? I’m aware of the Plantation product line from Pierre Ferrand, and there is also Myers’s Platinum (white) rum. I’ve seen a similar quotations on a number of cocktail recipe sites — perhaps this is the way it’s written in the original source? Could it be a discontinued product? Digging around a little, I learned that “Plantation” (or Estate) can refer to a seasonal method of making rum that is rarely used today (http://www.robsrum.com/RumBasics.html).
It’s just that rums can be so variable and distinctive, and I’d like to get as close as I can to the original intention of the “other” Mai Tai. Thanks for the informative site.
Wrong recipe. Should be rum, triplesec, lime, orgeat, sugar.
Oops, I was thinking of Trader Vic’s recipe. My bad, disregard the earlier comment.