Will This boozy Hawaiian Drink Be a Yes or a No- The Mai Kai No

Is the mai kai no a mai kai yes? We'll find out today. Now this is another tiki recipe from Hawaii that is from the 1960s, possibly even earlier. Now you will find this recipe out there in the wild and it shows up in the Drinks of Hawaii book and various other sources as well. All of the recipes that I've seen appear to be the same or at least very close to the same. So the origin, I couldn't really tell you, but there was a famous Hawaiian song from the 1920s called mai kai no kawaii, which you will often see spelled like this. Now I came across this recipe that I'm sharing today in an issue of House of Garden Magazine from 1964. It's the same issue that included the Bali Hai and there's one more drink that I'll come back to eventually from that magazine spread. It's not completely unknown, but just something that isn't really out there. So that's coming up sometime soon. The mai kai no does say to build the drink in the glass, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because there are multiple juices in it. So I'm just going to shake it instead. Now the drink also calls for a passion fruit juice, not a puree and not a syrup. And while we might think this is a fresh squeezed passion fruit, which would yield you a passion passion fruit puree, it's more likely that this was just passion fruit diluted with water and possibly some sugar. Also even more likely that we're talking about those frozen concentrated cans, the ones that look like tubes, like the orange juice concentrate. And yes, they were using this in Hawaii at the time. And that is probably what it was. It seems to be more prevalent in Hawaii than anything fresh. And I'm going to use this Hawaiian Sun Lily Koi Passion instead of just diluting down some passion fruit syrup, just because I already have this on hand. But if you have passion fruit syrup, just use less than the recipe calls for by at least half. And then maybe add some water or just pour soda water to this. I don't really know how it's going to matter in the end. Now the drink is plenty boozy, so it might help with the sweetness and the tartness. And when I say plenty boozy, I mean two and a half ounces of rum with one ounce of it being a 151 rum. Now the last thing here that I'll mention before making this is the blurb from the article says the Maikai note translates to, if you have one more than two more than one more than one, you're bound to be a loser. Now I'm not fluent in Hawaiian at all, but I can assure you that Maikai note does not mean that and probably is supposed to translate to very good or very beautiful. So let's make the Maikai note. I'm going to start with one dash of Angostura bitters, half an ounce of lime juice, half an ounce of a passion fruit juice, three quarter ounces of a honey syrup, half an ounce of Jamaican rum, one ounce of a light rum, and one ounce of a 151 Demerara rum. I'm going to garnish this with a pineapple spear and some mint. And I forgot I needed to add here a splash of soda water. So there you go. The Maikai note from Hawaii, I don't know, in the 1960s, maybe earlier. Who really knows? All right, let's try the Maikai note. Cheers. Super strong. It's aggressively strong. Uh, it's, I think the strength of it, you know, there's quite a bit of rum in here. We got two and a half ounces of rum, a half an ounce of Jamaican rum. So there's a little bit of that flavor, an ounce of light rum. So just ABV, then an ounce of a 151 Demerara rum. I use the Lemon Heart instead of the Hamilton. I find they're close. I like the Hamilton one a little better, but trying to mix it up. There's an intensity to this and it's actually exactly what I expect from this cocktail. This reminds me so much of the really strong sort of tiki-esque drinks or, you know, a lot of those strong Maikais, uh, the one I'm thinking of right now, which I've actually not made. I was going to make it here a few years ago. The Maikai from the Bali High in San Diego, which it's claimed to fame is that it has no juice. It's a Maikai with no juice. Uh, it's just lots of booze. This, uh, reminds me of those style of drinks that I've had, which is like a lot of rum, a little bit of sweetness. There's a little bit of juice here with the lime juice, but there's not, I don't think enough. And then using a passion fruit juice doesn't bring a lot of acidity or passion fruit flavor. It's very subtle. And then honey is the big other flavor here, but it's not overwhelmingly honey. It's not like a honey cocktail. I don't typically love cocktails that are really strong honey cocktail. So it doesn't taste like that. And the splash of soda there, it actually helps. It helps just lighten it up a little bit because otherwise it's very, very strong. I don't want to say it's very, it's not very heavy. It's not heavy in syrups. It's not heavy in rum. It's just strong. I think the drink tastes fine. If I went to a bar and, and ordered one of these, I wouldn't be upset by it, but I don't find that there's a lot of, uh, character to this other than just like a bunch of rum and some other stuff kind of mixed together. It doesn't really feel that connected all the ingredients. Uh, it's not like there's Angostura and cinnamon and things playing off of each other. It's just, it's kind of like one dimensionally rummy without it being the rumminess that I want. If that makes any sense, which I don't, I don't know if it does. And today's drink is served in a collector's item because I can't buy these anymore. You can't buy these making drink glasses anymore. I am sold out. It took a while to sell out because I got so many in that first run. But right now there's a new batch of mugs, mugs of glasses in production. They will not be this design. It's another design that I designed myself and it took me a long time. I did kind of three iterations, a couple different designs first before landing on this one, which I love. Like I love the new design that you will see sometime soon, uh, more than this one. It's, it's very much more, um, my style, I think, but, but still similar, I guess as well. And, uh, those will be coming, I don't know, probably in the next couple of weeks or months. So if you want to get one, stay tuned for that. Uh, head over to the major Patreon to be a first crack that I got less this time because I just don't have as much space to hold. Um, you know, those Libby boxes that they come in are like probably this wide and about not quite as deep as the bar. And it's like 10 of them. So I don't have as much space this time. I'm going to keep probably doing this way. Do it like smaller orders, save some of them for Patreon. And then we'll run out. I'll just have to do different batches, but, uh, I'm excited one day, you know, in the future to be a thrift shopping and, uh, and to find one of my glasses on a shelf somewhere. I, as much as it's kind of disappointing, that would be really cool at the same time too. So the Mike, I know it's, uh, I don't know. I it's, it's not bad. I don't, I know if I don't, if I don't give a glowing praise to a drink and say, it's the best thing I've ever had the people like, Oh, he thinks it sucks. I don't think it sucks. It's just not my cup of tea. And I think, uh, lowering the honey and using a passion fruit syrup instead of the juice, and then maybe three quarters of a lime would make a different cocktail and use different rums. And I know a lot of times people out there like, can I just, you know, what if I do? It's like, yeah, you can do those things, but then you're just inherently drinking something different, which is fine. And I always feel that way. Like, how could we, how could we workshop this thing to be better? It's like, well, let's just make something else. Let's just find a different drink. Why do we, why do we got to take duds and, and, uh, really contemplate how we can make it better? Or just make something else that you like. I just think that this is an interesting, historic cocktail that comes out in a couple of different books and magazines and the name of it. And sometimes those are the things I want to share here. And they're not always a hundred percent winners. This is not a complete loser. It's just not my favorite drink ever. And if you like strong drinks, not, not, um, strong in interesting, complex flavors, but just like strong. Yeah. You're going to like this one. So the Mai Kai, no. 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