Cocktail Times.com | Trader Vic's Cocktail & His Life

"Around 1944, I was sitting at the service bar at Trader Vic's in Oakland and the bartender and I decided to come up with a new drink. We talked about creating a drink that would be the finest drink we could make, using the finest ingredients we could find. And the Mai Tai is what we came up with."

Ingredients
- 2 oz 17yr old J. Wray Nephew Jamaican Rum
- 1/2 oz Curacao
- 1/2 oz Orgeat Syrup
- 1/4 oz Rock Candy Syrup
- Juice of 1 fresh lime

Pour the ingredients over shaved ice in a double old-fashioned glass, shook it well, add one spent lime shell and garnish it with a spring of fresh mint.

"When I was just about to taste it, somebody came in from the front and said that my good friends, Ham and Carrie Guild, had arrived from Tahiti. So I went into the main restaurant and passed the time of day with them. I told them that I had just made a new drink I hadn't even tasted yet and would they like to try it with me? "Sure" they said, and so I had two more made up using the exact same formula as the first. The drinks arrived. I tasted mine and didn't say a thing.

Carrie and Ham tasted theirs and Carrie asked Ham, "What do you think of it?"

"It's mai tai," he said. "It's mai tai roa ae."

I asked what in hell that meant and Ham said, "In Tahitian it means 'out of this world, 'the best.'"

"That's the name of the drink, them," I said. "

- Trader Vic

Vic's Cooking Recipe

- Who is Trader Vic?
- Hinky Dinks
- War Times
- Business expansion until today

"Some I have gathered at their origin and others are my own concoctions."
His Cocktail Menu
His Original Mai Tai Recipe

"Follow the directions and you'll love the results. Watch out for your ulcers."
See the recipes

See the photos of one of his restaurants in Atlanta, Hilton Hotel and the cocktails.
Enter the gallery

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