The Mai Tai as Trader Vic Told It (1944)
Reader ratingsAged Jamaica rum, fresh lime, orange curaçao, orgeat and rock candy syrup, shaken with shaved ice: the Mai Tai as Victor Bergeron said he first mixed it in 1944.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink, about 6 fl oz
- Prep
- Total
The 1944 Mai Tai over shaved ice in a heavy straight glass, with the spent lime shell and a sprig of mint, beside a shaker and a lime.
The story behind the recipe
Victor Bergeron made the original Mai Tai, and the only witness to its birth is Bergeron himself. In his own account, written in 1970, he made it in 1944 at the service bar of Trader Vic’s in Oakland, California. The rum was J. Wray & Nephew from Jamaica, 17 years old, two ounces of it, and with it came fresh lime, orange curaçao, French orgeat and a little rock candy syrup, all hand-shaken over shaved ice; one spent lime half went into the glass beside a sprig of mint. There is no pineapple in it, no orange juice and no umbrella, and the recipe here follows that account.
Out of this world
Bergeron said he mixed the first ones for friends visiting from Tahiti, Ham and Carrie Guild. After one taste, he wrote, Carrie told him in Tahitian that it was out of this world, the very best, and he named it Mai Tai after her words. His own tellings differ on who spoke: his 1972 bartender’s guide gives the words to Carrie, and his 1973 memoir to Ham. He wrote the story down nearly thirty years later, when his claim was being challenged, and we have found no menu or newspaper from 1944 that shows the drink, so the date rests on his word.
The challenger was his Hollywood rival, Donn Beach of Don the Beachcomber. Beach’s widow, Phoebe, said years afterward that the Beachcomber had served a Mai Tai Swizzle since 1933. She offered no dated menu, and the Beachcomber recipe later printed under that name is a different mix, with grapefruit juice and falernum.
Read more about this recipe
When the rum ran out
The 17-year-old rum did not last. By 1972 Bergeron’s own bartender’s guide called for his blended Mai Tai rum, or dark Jamaican rum mixed with rum from Martinique, and other guides of the 1970s were adding pineapple juice, grenadine or a float of dark rum. Any good aged Jamaican rum is the closest match to his first one today. Rich simple syrup, two parts sugar to one of water, is our stand-in for rock candy syrup. The Mai Tai’s family tree runs back through the Havana sours to the Jamaica punch bowl, as we trace in how rum got into cocktails.
Poured with its ice, the drink comes to about 17% ABV, roughly one and a half US standard drinks. Orgeat, the almond syrup in it, was once a drink of its own: the alcohol-free orgeat of 1807 is almonds pounded with orange-flower water and let down with milk.
Recipe makes: 1 drink, about 6 fl oz
Ingredients
For 1 drink, about 6 fl oz. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink, about 6 fl oz.
- Lime1
- Aged Jamaican rum2 fl oz
- Orange curaçao1/2 fl oz
- Orgeat1/2 fl oz
- Rock candy syrup or rich simple syrup1 1/2 tsp
- Shaved or finely crushed ice1 1/2 cups
- Fresh mint1 sprig
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 lime
- 2 fl oz aged Jamaican rum
- 1/2 fl oz orange curaçao
- 1/2 fl oz orgeat
- 1 1/2 tsp rock candy syrup or rich simple syrup
- 1 1/2 cups shaved or finely crushed ice
- 1 sprig fresh mint
Equipment
Cocktail shaker
Citrus juicer
Tumbler
Instructions
Halve the lime and squeeze both halves; keep the juice and one empty half shell.
Fill the cocktail shaker with the shaved or finely crushed ice and pour in the aged Jamaican rum, the lime juice, the orange curaçao, the orgeat and the rock candy syrup or rich simple syrup.
Close the shaker and shake hard by hand for about 10 seconds.
Pour everything, ice and all, into a double old-fashioned glass, without straining.
Push the lime shell into the ice and stand the fresh mint beside it at the edge of the glass, then serve.
Nutrition
250calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink, about 6 fl oz
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof rum (64 calories per fl oz), lime juice and granulated sugar, with typical label values for orange curaçao and orgeat syrup.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is one drink. Shake each one separately so it gets its own lime shell and shaved ice.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
The juice of one lime is about 1 fl oz. Only Bergeron’s 1970 typescript names brands for 1944, DeKuyper orange curaçao and Garnier orgeat; any orange curaçao and orgeat will do, and the brands are no longer the same. Bergeron’s 1970 account gives 1/2 fl oz of orgeat, which we follow; a modern web version of his recipe gives 1/4 fl oz. A modern aged Jamaican rum is usually about 40% to 43% alcohol; the 17-year-old rum’s strength isn’t recorded in his account.
The 1972 serve: for Bergeron’s later blend, use 1 fl oz dark Jamaican rum and 1 fl oz aged rum from Martinique in place of the 2 fl oz aged Jamaican rum.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Victor J. Bergeron, account of the Mai Tai’s creation, San Francisco, 1970, as reproduced by ultimatemaitai.com; measures also in his memoir Frankly Speaking (1973), pp. 125-127; the naming also in Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide, Revised (1972), pp. 163-164
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Cocktails & Mixed Drinks
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1940s
- Base
- Rum
- Difficulty
- Easy