The History of the Mai Tai

 

One day, in 1944, Vic was hanging around at the service bar in his Oakland restaurant with one of the bartenders and began talking about creating a new cocktail. With his typical confidence, he declared it would be the finest rum drink in the world. He grabbed a bottle of seventeen-year-old J. Wray & Nephew Jamaican rum off the shelf. With his hallmark light touch he added freshly squeezed lime, Dutch orange curacao, a splash of sugar syrup and a dash of French orgeat syrup. He poured the ingredients over crushed ice and shook it well. Half the lime shell went in for color along with a branch of fresh mint.

 

These may all have been top-shelf ingredients, but none of them were particularly exotic at that time. They were all sitting right there behind the bar. But Vic’s instinct for mixology gave him the ability to taste a drink, before he ever mixed a drop of it. The secret, he knew, was all in the proportions. And that afternoon he would blend five ingredients in the perfect proportions and make cocktail history.

 

Vic was just about to taste his concoction when his friends from Tahiti, Ham and Carrie Guild, showed up. He invited them to be the first to try the new drink. Everyone took a sip. Vic said nothing. Carrie said, “It’s mai tai! It’s mai tai roa ae.” “What the hell does that mean?” Vic replied. Carrie said, “It’s Tahitian for ‘out of this world- the best.’” “That’s the name of the drink” Vic declared, “It’s a Mai Tai.”

 

He wasted no time to put the drink on the menu, and it was an instant hit. How big a hit? Within a year, Trader Vic’s had exhausted all the seventeen-year-old J. Wray & Nephew in the world. No problem. Vic, by then a seasoned rum connoisseur, used one of his last bottles of J. Wray & Nephew as a gold standard and blended West Indies, Jamaican, and Martinique rums to create his own Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Rum.

 

In 1953 the Mai Tai was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands when the Matson Steamship Lines asked Vic to formalize drinks for the bars at their Royal Hawaiian, Moana and Surfrider Hotels. The mystique of the Mai Tai spread quickly, and soon it became until this day one of the most popular drinks around the globe.