Why the Mai Tai you ordered tastes like KoolAid… or costs 20 bucks. There are happy mediums to be reached here, folks!

I have no reason to travel to Belfast, and that is a damn shame. If any of my readers in Northern Ireland want to do a murder mystery party, I’m willing to do it for travel expenses alone, just so I can stay at the Merchant Hotel. I stumbled across its bar menu via a Google alert for “Pegu”. You can read it for yourself here (PDF).
The basic personality of the bar is revealed through the menu, and I am in love. First off, the drinks are sorted into three sections: The evening, the afternoon, and the morning. Sure, some bars will place a few meager selections of pick-me-ups on the menu; A Mimosa here, and Bloody Mary there. But the Merchant Hotel Bar has thirty-seven cocktails it classifies as Corpse Revivers & Picker Uppers (including the Pegu). I have a desire to visit a bar where the valiant patrons are beating back the morning hangover with Absinthe Drips and White Ladies! I am obviously not alone, as the bar proudly proclaims on the hotel website that it was named “World’s Best Hotel Bar” (as well as having the “World’s Best Drink Selection” and “World’s Best Drinks Selection”) at Tales of the Cocktail.
The menu is supplied with some wonderful, evocative quotations about cocktails that make it worth the read. It also includes a truly comprehensive array of towering drink classics to tickle every fancy, and warm a cocktailian’s heart.
Finally, they have a selection of cocktails that may benefit from a truly premium base, which they refer to as offerings from their Connoisseurs’ Club. For instance, Daiquiri’s at the Merchant range from £6.50 with Santiago de Cuba Anejo, to £195.00 with Bacardi Gold 1950s.
But the piece de resistance is the Mai Tai for £750.00….

I always had an inkling that I’d sell the first one and something told me it could be that night. I watched as a regular customer entered the room with another gentleman and two female companions. They were in high spirits, dressed for the occasion and as I approaced their table, I heard the ladies discussing cocktails. They asked me what I would recommend.
This was exactly how I hoped it would happen. I had rehearsed the scene a hundred times in my head.
“This cocktail was invented for discerning people like you — it’s an original Trader Vic’s Mai Tai. The key ingredient is extremely rare Wray and Nephew 17 year old rum from Jamaica. It has been reproduced to the exact original formula and we are theonly bar in the world that actually has a bottle to sell.”
Four sets of eyebrows raised and glances exchanged. I could see they were impressed.
“You’ll be making history by being the first person to buy this cocktail,” I continued.
…

Read the menu yourself to see how the story turns out.

A good country club bar is many things. It is a place to go to see friends. It is a place for swift, attentive, personalized service from people who know you on sight. It’s a place for reasonable drinks at reasonable prices. At least a good country club bar is all that. If you belong to a country club, and the bar is missing even one of these elements, get a new club. The bar at my club on the north side of Columbus, Ohio, Worthington Hills Country Club, is all of these things in spades.
Country club bars are also usually do not offer certain things. Chief among them is anything like high-end mixology. They aren’t the place to find original drinks, the bitters bottle usually has a splash of dust on it, and an Aviation is something the richer members do in their Cessnas. Over the years, the bar staff at the Hills has made some great strides in breaking out of this mold. Of course, you can safely order and get a Pegu there (I am a member, after all), and you can also get a decent Moscow Mule. And they have real lemon and lime juices to make drinks with, not just an endless supply of Finest Call Sour Mix to use for anything citrusy. My point is that I am lucky in the watering hole I frequent most. They are a cocktailian cut above country clubs just about everywhere.
But this May, they are making me swoon. Every month, they do a promotional cocktail, for which they bring in any needed special ingredients and stock up on fruit or whatever for garnishes that go the extra mile. Most of them haven’t been my cup of tea, but the effort and attention to detail is much appreciated….

Here’s your Mai Tai, Mrs. Calvert.

But this month, the Cocktail of the Month is the MaiTai. A real MaiTai. As in Trader Vic’s original 1940-something masterpiece (minus the original $50,000 a bottle rum). As in not that sweet mess you get virtually everywhere these days, if quixotically order one up. I’m betting the Hills is the only bar in Columbus with a bottle of oregeat behind the mahogany. If I’m wrong, I really want to know where it is! And they garnish it with a luxurious stem of Kentucky Colonel mint that I’ve now discovered really adds more than just pretty to the drink’s enjoyability. Never again will I garnish my MaiTais with lime!
Ditch the straw, people. It just takes away from the fragrance of the mint.
For those of you among my readers who are members, make sure you try a real MaiTai next time you hit the bar. This is a special cocktail, folks. If you live in Columbus and aren’t a member at the Worthington Hills, well, neener, neener. Or give me a call. I’ll get you in long enough to see what you’ve missing ’till now.
Now, it’s true that some of the upgrades in mixology have been in response to prodding from some damn cocktail geek who is there more than is good for him…

Gee.
I wonder who that could be!

Sure, I’ve pushed some recipes into their repertoire by ordering them over and over, and getting others to order them. But I also want to say that a lot of the improvement in available ingredients is due to the fine efforts of our new head bartender, Tony Baker. (For you members, that’s Bald Tony, as opposed to Big Tony. I’m not saying Big Tony isn’t going bald, and Bald Tony isn’t big, just that Tony Myers is bigger than Tony Baker, and Tony Baker is much balder than Tony Myers….) Thanks, Tony! Keep up the good fight!

OK, my birthday isn’t until Saturday, but Maggi sprung one of my presents on me early, and you should all prepare to just be jealous. (My wife does do the awesome gifts, don’t she?)
Behold, the Blendtec Total Blender, ye lesser home bar owners, and despair!

The PeguWife, and PeguOffspring, were at Costco yesterday when they found themselves staring at a huge, live demo of the Blendtec, complete with dude wearing the little carny-approved microphone headset.

Hi! Vince here….

Shut up. It wasn’t you. And aren’t you in jail?

The Polithe thought I’th thuffered enouth….

Anyway, the guy who was there was an articulate salesman, as my wife came home with said blender, and my children came home with heads full of blender facts, demanding cabbage ice cream. I kid you not.
Since you are an internet reader, you doubtless are at least passingly familiar with the Blendtec blender. There simply has been no more successful viral marketing campaign in the history of… ever, than the Will It Blend? videos.

It’s got a 64 oz. jar with a three inch heavy duty blade. 1500 watts of power. Computerized smart controls. Computerized, mind you. The tips of the blade spin at over 320 mph! I snark because I care. It really is an amazing piece of engineering that outstrips other blenders by miles. While most blenders feel burly at 3/4 horsepower, this guy has three. More than 20,000 rpms lets it do some wild stuff that I’ll write about as I try it out. Oh, and I got a seven year warranty, too.
Only one force in the universe can withstand its power:

Ice? Not a chance! Not only will this puppy shred as much ice as you can fit in the jar with contemptuous ease, the shape and computerized cycles will create a perfectly uniform, smooth beverage with no poking, shaking, or cursing.

Yeah, sure. I don’t believe it.
I’ve been making frozen Margaritas for years, Bub.
You are just being a marketing victim!

No ma’am, I have already put it through its paces. Like me, Maggi is suffering from Tiki Lag, defined as the continuing desire for Mai Tais, even though Tiki Month is over. She felt it important that I get my gift early, so that not only could she have a Mai Tai, but a frozen Mai Tai. I’m pleased to report that if you take a great cocktail and turn it into a Slurpee, it will still be a great cocktail. (Pegu attempts not recommended)
No, here is the only force able to withstand the Blendtec, far mightier than mere Titanic-destroying frozen water:

OK, come on.
You just are doing this post as an excuse to post videos!

Nothing could be further from the truth…. OK, it’s partly the truth. But mostly, I’m doing this because all the greatest bloggers must blender-blog from time to time. And this really is a cool device that will be useful for more in the bar than just making frozen daiquiri-like cocktails. Fresh fruit purées and juices are a cinch with this device. You can even make soup, hot soup, from scratch with the Blendtec.

This Basement Bar is now the ultimate power in the universe!

Exactly.
The Blendtec even has alchemical powers. Watch what Tom puts in there to get out a tasty meal of roast pork!

I’ll have lots more to write about this puppy, silly and serious. There are lots of things I see that I can do with this with drinks, and I can see that there are lots of things I could do with it that I can’t see yet.

OK, to paraphrase Bill Cosby, I told you the last two stories to tell you this one.
If there is one subject guaranteed to excite the juices and light the flaming garnishes of Tiki-philes round the world, it is this:
Who invented the Mai Tai, Trader Vic or Don the Beachcomber?
In my previous posts, outlining the lives of Don and Vic, I deliberately avoided much in the way of comparisons, saving that for here. Let’s first look at a few things about the two, aside from the Mai Tai. Don was first, period, in the tropical-polynesian feel restaurant with caribbean inspired cocktails. Vic undoubtedly knew of Don’s LA operation before he took off for New Orleans and points south to absorb the rum knowledge he wanted to built his own Tiki empire. I think that it’s telling that Vic did not try to imitate Don, and especially his drinks, directly. The Trader set out to assemble the same tool kit that Don had, then built his own design from the same starting point.
Without both of their work and inspiration, Tiki would never have been the force it was, or perhaps a force at all. And I suspect that both men knew it damn well. Both were rivals, perhaps intense rivals, but they knew they needed each other. They were fierce, even nasty and litigious on occasion, toward lesser Tiki creatures, but left each other strictly alone, as far as I can see. But I doubt they much liked each other either. Here are the definitive quotes from each man about the other (Both, not remotely coincidentally, relate to the paternity of the Mai Tai:

There continues to be controversy over who originally came up with the Mai Tai. It has never bothered me that Vic Bergeron took credit, and I have never held a grudge. The plain fact is, there can be no truer form of flattery than when other people claim credit for your concepts and ideas and use them for their own benefit.
-Don the Beachcomber

That is one stunning load of horse manure, Don!

Anybody who says I didn’t create the Mai Tai is a dirty rotten stinker.
-Trader Vic

Gee Vic, who ya talking about?

Don claims to have first served his Mai Tai in 1933, an assertion that is repeated as fact by his partisans, and spoken with skepticism by Vic’s gang. No one seems to have any historical evidence of this. Not a menu, a celebrity diary entry, nothing. I suspect that if there was, it would always be front and center in the debate. Vic states he invented it in 1944. That’s a pretty big discrepancy.
We should remember that a well made Mai Tai is the best Tiki drink that ever was poured. Period. Of that, partisans on both sides emphatically agree. Or at least I think so, so that makes it fact.
In the late thirties, these men were the hippest things going in California’s two great cities, and shared a huge percentage of their clienteles. If Don had this killer libation in his bag of tricks and Vic didn’t, why is this not common knowledge, rather than uncommon controversy? Of course, we who live today in the age of the Internet and mass media are a little out of touch with how slowly and imperfectly information used to travel.
Also, while Don was brilliant and creative, perhaps beyond Vic’s powers, he lacked the Trader’s ability to institutionalize his work, and spread it sustainably beyond his own personal reach. I’ll repeat my assertion from last post that Don was Francis Drake, but Vic was Henry Ford. Don may well have served the magnificent Mai Tai for years before Vic, but failed to set it in people’s minds beyond his reach. Give Vic a superweapon like the Mai Tai, and he would cement it in the minds of folks around the world.
Also, there is the famous conversation. Syndicated columnist Jim Bishop wrote a letter to Honolulu columnist Don Chapman in 1989, in which he claims that he was part of a conversation at Trader Vic’s in San Francisco in which the Trader appears to have admitted that Don invented the Mai Tai. I am skeptical. In the 1970s, this would have been a huge story, and Bishop didn’t write about it then? Or, if we go with the idea that he waited until both men had died, it would still have been a story of some magnitude in 1989 at the very nadir of Tiki. Why would one journalist give it to another? Also, these were old frenemies, in their cups. If the conversation did take place as remembered, it is hardly conclusive. Still, it’s a powerful piece of evidence, if you trust it.
So, based on talent, personality, and historical evidence (or lack thereof), we don’t have a convincing argument either way. Let’s examine another feature of the competition between Vic and Don, and their lesser rivals: Secrecy.
If Don Beach and Vic Bergeron had been entrusted with national security, the Russians would have had to come up with The Bomb on their own. These guys (especially Don) guarded their recipes like virgin daughters. We do not have absolute certainty over what was in the original Mai Tai, whomever made it, or when the Mai Tai recipe we think of as definitive actually started being offered under the name Mai Tai. This should muddy the waters, but in fact this is the key to answering who is the father of the Mai Tai.
Here is what Don’s wife calls his original Mai Tai recipe, in Hawaii Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine by Don the Beachcomber:

And here is Trader Vic’s recipe for the very first Mai Tai ever made, as found in Trader Vic’s Tiki Party! and first read by me on Rumdood’s site:

Note several differences: First, the recipes are very different; not the same cocktail at all, really. Don’s is general, Vic’s is specific, about brands and the story of its creation. Don probably didn’t even write it down when he first made it, which is why it’s so general. In short, it has the feel of just another cocktail Don invented.
Vic’s recipe comes with story of it’s creation, it’s naming, and the bottles he used. It looks like the result of a great discovery.
Combine these impressions with a central observation that most of today’s cocktailscienti will make: The Trader Vic recipe is The Recipe. Don’s Mai Tai is an OK drink. Vic’s is… Oh Wow.
Don may well have invented a Tiki drink he called a Mai Tai before Vic. I would suggest the evidence leans that way; though that evidence, like most things Don, is deliciously shady.
But I submit that it doesn’t matter. Trader Vic threw together five simple ingredients in perfect proportion, and created a drink that is the apex of the movement. In whatever order these men came up with their Mai Tais, the drinks are dramatically different beasts; homonyms, not synonyms. And the one that matters is Vic’s.

Dude, I mean Dood, you are writing on my wall.

Curse you!
It’s the only way I can record my incarceration.
Let me log out, you vile cur!

Hey, it’s your fault, Mai Tai Boy!
You got me hooked on this drink, and I’m out of the Extra Old.
I need more ways to make great Mai Tais. Work your blendy magic for me, and I’ll release you.

What?
But I have! I have caused the web to be flooded with Mai Tai blends.

Huh? Where?

Don’t you check your own RSS reader?
I snuck out my notes via carrier rat. You can see my post on my blog.
I’ve given you a whole damn Month of Mai Tais! Now let me out!

Huh. I’ll have to look at that….

Look at it?!?
Tiare, who never gave up on me, has posted a Month of Mai Tai’s too!
Let me out!

Kewl. Though I seem to remember that Rick and Blair….

They’re on it! I promise.
Let me log out, and I’ll go pester them. But if you don’t let me out soon, I’ll fade away forever. Just look at me!

You do look crummy.
Tell you what, you’ve done well. Here’s a Mai Tai made with my last reserved XO.

Oh God!
[gulp] [gulp]
What am I doing?
[sip] [sip]

Ah! Thank you!
May I log out now?

Yes please. You are cluttering up my blog with irrelevant, silly posts that do nothing for my august reputation as a serious cocktailscienti.

[RUMDOOD HAS LOGGED OUT]

Oh, and Dood, congratulations on the 2008 Food Blog Award!

Hmmm. I really do like the whole Mai Tai experience, top to bottom. Perhaps I should look into the area of cocktails further…..

Curse you, Rumdood!
A few days ago, I was hanging out in the Mixosoleum chat room, talking to Cocktailnerd and Rumdood. Our conversation came round to what great cocktail has become the most degraded. We settled on three contenders: The Daiquiri, the Margarita, or the Mai Tai. On further reflection, I’d have added a fourth faded beauty, the Mint Julep, but these’ll do well. Gabriel ran off and posted a poll on the Mixosoleum’s blog where you can vote for which of these great drinks have become most debased.
As we wrangled back and forth about which drink was a bigger wreck, I made a confession of a youthful indiscretion involving Tropicana Frozen Mai Tai Concentrate. Gabe and Matt, in the supportive manner of true friends, instantly banned me from the chatroom.
When they let me back in, Matt made a really good point. The true shame of all three of these drinks is that very few people have ever had a real one. I’ve ordered one in a bar twice, and neither was any good. I’d given up on this legendary name long ago.
Shortly after this, Matt went off to compose a rant on his blog about the One True Mai Tai. It’s worth a read. I read it.
Then I repaired to the Pegu Lounge to give it a whirl.
Here’s Trader Vic’s original recipe, as Matt reports it:

Now, Matt notes that a bottle of the original rum for the recipe will run you in the neighborhood of $5.2 x 10⁴, and I unaccountably had none in stock. This sometimes happens around here when it becomes convenient to display prices in scientific notation.
But this does not mean that I don’t have some nice rum on hand. I recently came in to possession of a bottle of Mount Gay Rum Extra Old, and this seemed like an auspicious occasion to break the seal. The Extra Old is a blended spirit, with constituents ranging from 12 years (old) to 17 years (um, extra old, I guess). It is a very dark mahogany, as you can see from my crummy photography, and has a complex aroma that my large but inefficient nose identified only as dinner on a Caribbean beach.
My only other ingredient issue was the Orgeat syrup. This is an almondy goop that does some fun things. Now current vogue in cocktailianna is to make your own, but this is a skill I don’t have yet. So I was forced into pulling out my giant bottle of commercial Orgeat.

Commercial Orgeat?
The kind in the giant store and pour?
Eww, that’s just Karo syrup and Almond extract!

Sorry. I’ll try to better later. Made From Scratch Orgeat is on my list for the future.

Hey!
What am I doing in your blog?

That’s a good question. You never even comment here, why are you in a post? Get out.
So, the Mai Tai is a dead simple little cocktail. How did it ever get associated with the popular idea of Tiki drinks needing eighteen ingredients and a fruit truck?
Since I doubted that the Pegu-wife would want one of these, I mixed only one up, using Cointreau for Orange Curaçao. I didn’t have mint around, so I decided to garnish with one of my fresh batch of homemade Maraschino Cherries, and am umbrella. Voila!

You hassle me about being a Tiki blogger (when I’m not) and you have little green umbrellas just lying around on hand?

Still here? You need an umbrella for your tropical drink to keep the Sun from melting your ice.

It’s January.

And there is an ice storm going on right now. I really need to believe that the Sun is going to melt my ice.
The first impression of my first sip was not good. Honestly it seemed dull. For a second, I started to wilt. But then the full flavor of this drink began to blossom across the palate. A second sip confirmed that the Mai Tai was in fact a tragically neglected cocktail. I had tried making them in years past (badly), and I’d ordered them in tiki-themed restaurants (they stank), but…

See? No matter what they may think, most people have never actually had a Mai Tai.

I now see the wisdom of your words.
The flavor is very complex, and frankly a little indescribable. The ingredients meld wonderfully, to the point where you can hardly identify any of them, leaving a drink that tastes a bit like a… well… Mai Tai.
I wandered upstairs to give Maggi a sip, whether she wanted it or not. She gave the cocktail her usual suspicious look. After a first taste, however, she just walked away, with the Mai Tai! Refusal to relinquish the drink is a pretty good sign that I have a new regular part of the repertoire.
The next night, I went down to make more Mai Tais, and decided I’d experiment with the Rum. The Mount Gay Extra Old is 45 bucks in Ohio, and I wondered if, with all the other flavors at work, I could get away with a more, um, mainstream rum. Wandering back into the warehouse, I produced a bottle of Bacardi Gold. I whipped up two Mai Tais, one with the Bat-Beverage, one with the Mount Gay EO. There is an immediate visual difference to begin with. The color of the Gold-made Mai Tai was lighter and less exotic.
When I sipped the Gold Mai Tai, the first, split-second impression of the first sip was simlarly unimpressive as the Extra Old-made one. But the subsequent bloom is far less appealing. The flavors don’t play as well together. Many of the flavor elements are missing. And the pleasant glow of the EO Mai Tai is replaced by a more harsh burn. Looking for a second opinion, I offered both to Maggi. She made a face when drinking the Gold-made, and said it tasted like cough syrup.
The experiment went down the sink, and the level in the Extra Old bottle went down some more.
So again I say: Curse you, Rumdood! You conned me into adding another classic to my regular inventory, but one that will put a continuing dent in my pocketbook. It’ll be worth it, but don’t you know there’s a Recession on?