Mai Tai
ClassicIBA OfficialRum, lime, and orgeat. The tiki benchmark.
Rich and complex, with aged rum's oak-and-molasses depth at the core. Orgeat lends a soft almond sweetness, orange liqueur adds a bright citrus lift, and fresh lime keeps the whole thing crisp. A dark rum float crowns it with a deeper, funkier note. Strong but balanced — never cloying.
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz Aged Rum
- 0.75 oz Orange Liqueur
- 0.75 oz Fresh Lime Juice
- 0.5 oz Orgeat
- 0.5 oz Dark Rum
- Mint sprig · optional garnish
- Lime shell · optional garnish
Method
- 1
Add the aged rum, orange liqueur, lime juice, and orgeat to a shaker with crushed ice.
- 2
Shake briefly, then pour unstrained into a rocks glass.
- 3
Float the dark rum over the top.
- 4
Garnish with a mint sprig and a spent lime shell.
The Story
The Mai Tai is Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron's masterpiece, mixed at his Oakland bar in 1944 for visiting friends from Tahiti — one tasted it and declared "Maita'i roa ae," Tahitian for "out of this world." Built on aged rum, fresh lime, orange curaçao, and almond orgeat, it was engineered to let good rum shine rather than bury it in fruit juice. It became the drink that defined the tiki era, and the yardstick every serious tiki bar still answers to.
Recipe card
The whole recipe in one shareable image.
