Welcome to our series sharing Food Holidays: June 30th the last day of the month. Tomorrow is my moms Birthday and I sure wish she was here to spend the day with her.
But she isn’t and her favorite drink was a Strawberry Daiquiri and with David being off tomorrow night he can get one of those and I could get a Mai Tai to try and we could toast my mom. Would you like to join us?
Tiki bar lovers, this is your day! The mai tai was originally created in Oakland, Calif., by Victor Bergeron, when he was serving two friends from Tahiti in 1944. He used Jamaican rum, fresh lime, orange curacao, a dash of rock candy sugar, and French orgeat syrup, then garnished it with lime and mint. Today, there are multiple takes on the recipe, but any way you shake it, it’s impossible not to feel like your taste buds are taking a trip to the tropics.
Facts about Mai Tai
- The Zombie was the Cosmopolitan of its day. The Zombie was the drink that put tiki on the map.
- In 1959 the Mai Tai knocked the Zombie off its pedestal.
- That’s the year Hawaii became a state.
- Hawaii became a tourist mecca almost overnight.
- All the tourists went to luaus and sere served a fruity drink called the Mai Tai.
Recipe Mai Tai:
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 ounces white rum
- 3/4 ounce orange curaçao
- 3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed
- 1/2 ounce orgeat
- 1/2 ounce dark rum
- Garnish: lime wheel
- Garnish: mint sprig
Add the White Rum, Curaçao, Lime Juice and Orgeat into a shaker with crushed Ice and shake lightly (about 3 seconds).
Pour into a double Rocks Glass.
Float the dark Rum over the top.
Garnish with a Lime Wheel and Mint Sprig.
Orgeat:
Invigorating cocktails were on the menu. Handmade Orgeat Syrup.
Orange bitters. Grenadine syrup that straddled the line between tart, sweet, and rich. Made from scratch, sourced with obsessive detail, and custom made to produce the perfect cocktail. Or so Blair Reynolds intended.
Then a one-time bartender sidled up to the bar, ordered a Gimlet, and spilled. Started lamenting to a sympathetic ear that it’s next to impossible to make Cocktail ingredients by hand, night after night, that meet the quality standards of obsessives like them.
Dozens of burned batches. Erratic sources of Ginger, Cinnamon, and other essential ingredients. Frustrations leading to resignation that perfection would always take a backseat to ease.
For Reynolds, a light switched on. Glasses clinked in the distance. A fresh Lime dropped into a Mojito with a celebratory splash.
Within months, BG Reynolds was born. He set free an original Orgeat Syrup made with real Almonds, Cane Sugar, and weeks of high-spirited research, testing, and tasting.
Designed to turn out flavors worthy of a bartender’s exacting standards, consistently. Other Syrups soon followed.
Grenadine. Cinnamon. Wild ginger.
House-made Syrups and mixers made by bartenders, for bartenders. But for others too. Devout home Mixologists and entertainers. Seasoned cocktail drinkers and new converts.
All made with real ingredients, painstakingly sourced. Each the perfect union of flavors, balance, and integrity to produce refreshing, authentic-tasting cocktails again. And again. And again.
Cocktails that take you places you’ve never been before. Like Blair Reynolds intended.
Finally, complex cocktails that only taste complicated. BG Reynolds, established 2009.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
