The Oldest Mai Tai Recipe Might be the Most Appealing

Today we make the oldest Mai Tai recipe ever, and you've probably never had it. Most likely. Maybe never even heard of it. Yes, today we are making yet another Mai Tai, and it's not just any other Mai Tai. It's the oldest publicly printed Mai Tai recipe that exists, and it's going to be just a little bit different from all other Mai Tais. Now, as you all know by now, the Mai Tai was created by Tretevich in the summer of 1944. He served these no-name drinks to some friends who were visiting from Honolulu, or maybe they were living locally. That part's a little bit murky. But they had lived in Tahiti, and when they were served this delicious concoction, one of them exclaimed, Mai Tai. Now, technically, they said Maytay, but that's besides the point. The rest is history. Or is it? It is. But that is what you call a hook, and something I'm supposed to do at the top of the video. Anyways, I'm sure all of you know by now that the Mai Tai did not take off and become a world-famous cocktail right away. We've talked about this before. It didn't take off for another 10 years, and actually even longer, not until Tretevich took that Mai Tai to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, where the drink was modified, and then it took even a few more years for it to take off. Now, as for that 17-year-old fine Jamaican rum that everyone on Reddit clamors over, it's totally irrelevant to the Mai Tai becoming the most famous of all tiki drinks. But instead, it was a split base of a light rum and a dark Jamaican rum. Something maybe like this. Not old and expensive, but cheap and very much available. Now, an official recipe from Tretevich does not come about for another 20 years, so in that time, all we had were recipes handed over from bartenders at the Royal Hawaiian, sometimes to random people, and sometimes to famous Bay Area travel writers. But this lack of officially sourced recipes from Tretevich, or how and why the drink evolves or devolves into the mess of juicy pineappliness with some orange juice or grenadine or whatever else, that's because people at the time were basically just winging it. Make me a Mai Tai, good sir, and if you were one of those good sirs, you would just have to guess. So that's how we got here, to the Mai Tai that are not that much like the original. But the official Tretevich recipe was not the first recipe to make its way into print. The first one is pretty close to the original, but one pretty big difference, which we'll get to. The first printed recipe for the Mai Tai did not show up in Hawaii or Oakland or anywhere else that you would guess, but instead, it comes from the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, June 15, 1958. The recipe was shared with the newspaper by Leonie Seidman, who had just returned from Hawaii after a three-week vacation. She stayed for a few days at the all-new Kaiser Hawaiian Village, but spent most of her vacation at the Royal Hawaiian, where she was able to bring back a taste of Hawaii for everyone in Memphis. While in Hawaii, Mrs. Seidman ran into several of her friends from back home, and just the act of having your vacation shared in a local newspaper makes me think that she was quite a socialite. Her husband was a Memphis attorney and writer who also just really liked Memphis, and I know this because he wrote a book called A Man Who Likes Memphis. Come on now, who out there is providing you with more useless cocktail research than stuff like this? Nobody. If anyone has a copy of that book, let me know. Maybe there's a long-lost Mai Tai recipe deep in those pages. The Commercial Appeal Mai Tai is mainly separated from others by the use of lots of lemon juice and some lime, and Mrs. Seidman said that the recipe was given to her by a bartender at the Royal Hawaiian who even drew it on a napkin. Lots of lemon juice and lime juice? Well, she may have stumbled upon the most Trader Vic Mai Tai that has ever existed. Some of you probably get that. Now, before we make and drink the oldest Mai Tai, I'll be serving this in my newest Make and Drink glass, which is now available. And if you buy it during the month of May, 2026, you can get a discounted price before I increase the prices. Oh, and if you're part of the Make and Drink Patreon, you get an additional discount, which, uh, you know, that's pretty cool. So why don't we jump into this recipe and then more about the glass and the drink as we drink it. I'm going to start with one ounce of lemon juice, half an ounce of lime juice, one-third an ounce of rock candy syrup, that's a two-to-one rich simple syrup, one-third an ounce of orgeat, one-third an ounce of orange curacao, and one-third would be between a quarter and a half, one ounce of a light Puerto Rican rum, and then one ounce of a dark Jamaican rum. So there you go, the Mai Tai recipe printed in the Commercial Appeal, which happens to be the oldest Mai Tai recipe in print. All right, this is my first time having this Mai Tai, so let's try it. Cheers! Strangely, I don't find that too tart, and it's actually, like, delicious. I think that, that split base of rums, you're just totally relying on, on the dark rum. In this case, I use caruba, and the, the light rum's not doing anything. So those can, those styles, those island Mai Tais, can feel a little flat sometimes, but I think having the extra component of lemon juice, it just brightens it up so much more, without it losing the rum character. And I enjoy that clean lemon flavor, as opposed to just the lime. And I still get orgeat, I still get orange curacao, so it is very much Mai Tai, and I think that's to be expected. I was just kind of expecting that, that combo of lemon and lime to crush everything else. And for me, at least, it doesn't. I think if you're a little more sensitive to acidity and tartness, then you might find this to be not very appealing. However, I think just because the fact that we're using a lot of lemon juice, and if you're using a lot of lime juice, and then a little bit of lemon, I think that wouldn't work. But the fact that it's mainly lemon and then lime, it, it actually works really well. I really, really like this Mai Tai. What helps too, is using the third ounce increments, you're, at least for the Mai Tais I make, which is usually just half an ounce of orgeat, and then half an ounce of orange curacao. So we, we still have an ounce, even though we're fighting the extra acidities, we have an ounce of sweetener, but more of our sweetener is coming from syrup, than like a split of, you know, syrup and liqueur. So I think just because of that, it adds that extra touch of sweetness, which helps like balance out that half an ounce of lime juice. And I, I wouldn't say it's balanced for people who are really stuck on everything being balanced, but I find it light and refreshing and still rummy. And yeah, it's just, yeah, I'm, I'm surprised that it turned out this well, even though I probably shouldn't have been, but just looking on paper, so much juice, it's still great. All right. A new make and drink glass is available right now and kind of on sale. The price you see on the website is the intro price and prices will be going up on June 1st. Turns out everything is more expensive, getting the glassware made, the, the shipping to get the glassware, the boxes, the tape, my shipping costs. I don't know if y'all knew this, but like everything is more expensive. Now I went through a few designs before landing on this one, and it has a few things going on. There are some vintage inspired Hawaiian Coppa prints that flank the logo. And you can find those on the new make and drink coasters as well. There are some vignettes on the side. So one of them inspired by vintage menus and the other, a Mai Tai recipe, which I'll come back to. And the colors here, I think are a little bit unusual, especially if you have like a lighter colored drink, but they're inspired by the enchanted tiki rim sign, as well as the colors of Hawaii. That red and yellow being the colors that are found in traditional feather capes, like the ones worn by King Kamehameha. And then I wanted to put a Mai Tai recipe on here, which is just kind of a Mai Tai recipe I've landed on here at this bar, which is Jamaican rum and Demerara rum. And when I made my first Mai Tai glasses a couple of years ago, I use that combo of rums. And it's still one of my favorite ways to make a Mai Tai showcasing my two favorite styles of rum. Now, is that authentic to the original Mai Tai? It is not, but it's 10 times more authentic than one with an Agricole. Now at this point, not many of us need a recipe for a Mai Tai, but I just love the idea that one day someone will come across this and have no idea what a Mai Tai is. They'll buy this glass at Goodwill, take it home, make a Mai Tai, and it's going to just change their world forever. At least that is my dream. If you're a part of the Make & Drink Patreon, you can use your discount code, because you have discount codes for the Make & Drink shop. If you're part of Patreon, you can save a few bucks, even right now before the prices go up, or you can join the Patreon to get that discount code. And I do just seriously greatly appreciate anyone who supports this channel, whether that's through buying some glasses, joining the Patreon, obviously, or just watching the videos, because everything really helps when you're a smaller YouTube channel trying to get by. So, in conclusion for this drink, I actually like this, but if you're someone who is like, hmm, we need to fix this drink. How can we fix this drink? Well, here's what you can do. Go to the Make & Drink shop, you can buy a Mai Tai glass, and then there will be a recipe on the glass waiting for you to fix this said cocktail. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like below. Comment on this. Have you ever had this recipe? I've never had it. I've known about it for a long time. I've just personally never made it. A big thank you to Mrs. Seidman from Memphis for traveling to Hawaii, capturing the first ever printed Mai Tai recipe, and bringing it back to us. Hopefully, one day we find something even earlier than that, but who knows? So, I don't know. If you've tried it, let me know. If you do try it, come back, let me know as well. Let me know what you think. Otherwise, I'll see you on the next one.