The Mai Tai

Mai Tai. Not Your Tai.

This tropical classic is rum, orgeat (almond) syrup, orange curaçao, and freshly squeezed lime juice. It is born of the heyday of the tiki bar craze, when Trader Vic Bergeron and Donn “Don the Beachcomber” Beach were the rock stars of the tropical night club scene.

Let me say that I am a big fan of orgeat syrup in cocktails. It makes the Royal Hawaiian a fantastic drink and I suspect it’s also what makes the Mai Tai taste so freaking good. I don’t believe in Heaven but for those of you who do, I imagine St. Peter is going to hand you a Mai Tai at the gates. Being only a few days from the end here, I am alright with slight alterations to the recipes. I’m not playing it fast and loose here, but I increased the dosage by 1/4 on all the other ingredients. DeGroff’s recipes sometimes just look pitiful in the glass. Additionally, the picture had ice in the glass though the recipe doesn’t call for it. Usually I’ll go with the recipe and bellow about the damn food stylist, but this drink I think deserves ice cubes at least. Other recipes I found for the Mai Tai included ice so it’s not like I’m pitching from the dugout. A picture of DeGroff’s recipe, the meager 3 1/2 ounces of liquid, no ice, with a mint sprig floating belly up in the glass…it just looks like something in a bus tray left over from a wedding reception.

The Fog Cutter

DeGroff points out that this drink, the Eggnog (yum!), and the Long Island Iced Tea (yurp!) are the only cocktails sanctioned by him that involve mixed spirits. Sure it’s okay to use two or three different rums in a drink, but gin and rum and brandy is usually a recipe for disaster. But here in the Fog Cutter, it works.

2 ounces Brugal rum
1 ounce brandy
1/2 ounce gin
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce fresh-squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce orgeat
1/2 ounce simple syrup
Float of sherry (Dry Sack) on top (I figure a float to be 1/2 ounce)

That’s a pretty complicated drink. Don’t get me wrong, it cuts the fog, certainly. I expected it to be sweet and fruity but it’s confusing. The bold flavor of the Brugal rum is there. I think I can make out the brandy, even. But it’s the maestro that is orgeat syrup that taunts and tempts your tastebuds with his almondy baton. It’s mighty fine. A huge drink it is which is a real change of pace for the usually dainty measures in The Essential Cocktail. One of these could last you a few minutes even. Not me though, I have to get on to the next drink. Well, first an anecdote:

I really hate to hip absolutely everyone to a hidden gem, but it’s really just friends and family reading this, so…there’s a little place north of San Luis Obispo called Cambria. It’s a tiny town of antique junk shops and weird and wonderful eateries. The beach at Cambria is Moonstone Beach and the sand there varies from multicolored marble sized stones to small weathered pebbles. It’s a pretty magical little beach. You could walk a quarter mile and by the end have such a neck-ache from scanning the beach for treasures. Along Moonstone Beach there are quite a few beachfront hotels and inns and one is called The FogCatcher. Now there’s nothing particularly special about The FogCatcher, though I’ve stayed there a couple of times and it is very sweet. You know how sometimes when you can’t remember the name of a place, you just make something up? Well, to me and the circle of friends who have stayed there, the place is known as The Ass-grabber. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t remember Fogcatcher and one of my dad’s old chestnuts is that when you were horsing around you were “playing grab-ass.” So the Fog Cutter cocktail reminds me of The Ass-grabber, in a ’round about way.

Wow.

The Pousse Café

Now that I’ve consumed two powerful cocktails, it is the perfect time to try my steady hand at the Pousse Café which means “push the coffee” in French. Right?

The Pousse Café is a fancy drink, the likes of which date back before the 20th century, made by layering different liqueurs into a glass in order of relative density: The heavier (sugarier) liquids first. The object is to pour the successive ingredients slowly along the inside of the glass so as to prevent mixing. The Essential Cocktail  suggests that one use a bar spoon, pouring 1/4 ounce of each of the liquids onto the backside of the spoon so they disperse harmlessly onto the previous layer. This doesn’t work. Especially with such tiny quantities. No, it was better for me to pour each ingredient slowly into the BOWL of the spoon held up against the inside of the glass so I could regulate how quickly it dropped onto the previous layer. This is a 3 1/2 ounce cordial glass I got at Sur La Table. Anyway, in order of application, the Pousse Café is:

Grenadine
Dark creme de cacao
Green creme de menthe
Blue curaçao
Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
Triple sec
Brandy

I knew mine would not measure up to the image in the book, but I’m pretty damned proud of how it turned out. Going by the order of ingredients in the book, you have to trust that the product you bought has the same basic weight as those prescribed. For me, I think my creme de cacao and grenadine were of similar weight as the cacao looked to drop to the bottom of the glass at any moment. Ditto for the creme de menthe and blue curaçao; there wasn’t much distinction between the green and blue where they met. I think the recipe assumes that triple sec will have some kind of pale orange color because the Luxardo is clear and the brandy is golden. But my triple sec, Hiram Walker, is kind of clear. Nevertheless it seemed to keep the Luxardo and the Courvoisier apart so I think it did it’s job. DeGroff says to serve this with a straw so the imbiber can drink it layer by layer and not mix the thing into an ugly brown mess.

The first long sip, the grenadine and dark creme de cacao, tastes like a chocolate covered cherry. The next sip, the green creme de menthe, tastes as if someone slipped a Junior Mint between your teeth. The blue curaçao tastes like nothing as far as I can tell. The next sip, the maraschino liqueur, tastes like someone slipped a gasoline rag in your mouth. By now, probably due to inevitable backwash, what’s left is all green and tastes like Hai Karate. Pause here,  because the remaining layers of green tinted triple sec and brandy will re-separate. Then you can continue sipping. Don’t stop now though because what’s left is sure to cause permanent offense to your tongue. Drinking this thing through a straw is what I imagine inhaling kerosene fumes would be like. And yet there really isn’t much alcohol in this. The Luxardo and the brandy are the top vote-getters for mayor of this drink’s Drunkytown but there is so little in here that it would only affect the most frail of 4 year-olds.

If you are new here you need to know that I urge you 21+ year olds to try these drinks carefully. You under 21 year-olds just read the spicy words and look at the pretty pictures and not try this at home (or anywhere else for that matter!).