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Who says you need to be at, on, or very near a beach to drink a Mai Tai? Certainly it wasn't us. And when foul weather encroaches, with foul moods right on its tail, you don't need a beach-themed excuse to drink a tiki classic. The Mai Tai is certainly that. Here you'll find a recipe that's damn close to the original (more on it in a moment), sans any sticky fruit juices or colorful umbrellas. As far as the base spirit goes, the original was made with 17-year-old Jamaican rum, which you can interpret in your own Mai Tai as any dark rum with unflinching character. Tiki mug optional, but definitely fun.

A Little Background

There once was a man named Victor J. Bergeron—if you've heard of him, it'd be by his chosen name, Trader Vic—proprietor of a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants called Trader Vic's. In the heat of the second World War, as soldiers died horrific deaths in both theaters, he stood in his original Oakland-based Trader Vic's restaurant and felt that a new cocktail was in order. He started with that rich Jamaican rum aged 17 years and added orange curaçao, orgeat syrup, rock candy syrup, and fresh lime. As he later wrote, "I stuck in a branch of fresh mint and gave two of them to Ham and Carrie Guild, friends from Tahiti.... Carrie took one sip and said, Mai tai—roa ae! In Tahitian this means 'Out of this world—the best!'" And so the Mai Tai was named. (Donn Beach of Don the Beachcomber, an iconic, pre-war tiki establishment, claimed that Vic didn't invent the Mai Tai so much as take inspiration from a drink he himself had created in 1933. Vic disputed this.)

The Mai Tai blew up in the decades that followed. It popped up in Elvis Presley's 1961 film Blue Hawaii. Richard Nixon apparently appreciated a good Mai Tai, popping over to the Trader Vic's outpost near the White House in the '70s. And along the way, Trader Vic and others started using fruit juices, OJ, rum blends, and even mixes for their Mai Tais, which explains the great variation in recipes today. But the fact remains, when people think tiki, they think Mai Tai.

If You Like This, Try These

The Mai Tai is joined by other tiki rum classics like Planter's Punch, the Hurricane, the Rum Runner, and the Pain Killer. The Zombie is perhaps the most formidable of all, with four kinds of rum and optional flames. And on the lighter, low-life side, there's always a Piña Colada.

What You Need

Here’s what you need to do a Mai Tai justice, beyond what you might be able to dig out of the fridge or cupboard.

Dark Rum drizly.com $22.99 Buy Orange Curacao drizly.com $19.99 Buy Orgeat Syrup amazon.com $19.99 Buy Rock Candy Syrup amazon.com $11.99 Buy

Food styling by Sean Dooley

Prop Styling by Ashley Naum