Thirsty Thursday Mai Tai!

In trying to find pictures for Throwback Thursday, I realized I have a lot of pictures of adult beverages (that is said with pride, by the way!). As such, I’ve decided that rather than share pictures of me with bad 80s hair and glasses that legitimately covered half my face, I could easily share glasses of a much tastier kind. So without further ado, I present to you: Thirsty Thursday!

You cannot go to Hawaii and not have a Mai Tai.

SIDENOTE: Autocorrect wants to change Mai Tai to Man Tai, which is making me snort coffee out of my nose!

Sorry [wiping coffee off the laptop], where was I?  Oh yes, “you cannot go to Hawaii and not have a Mai Tai.”  Unless, of course, you are not 21 then you can totally go to Hawaii and not have a Mai Tai.  Same applies if you don’t drink.  Or can’t drink.

But if you can drink and do drink and are old enough to drink, then I feel like you cannot go to Hawaii and not have at least one Mai Tai.  It’s part of the experience.

I guess now would be a great time to mention that we’re in Honolulu–and we’ve just landed after a 9 hour flight from Atlanta. After we dropped our bags at the hotel, we walked around Waikiki for awhile and stopped in at Duke’s for a late lunch and our first drink (you can read about Tracy and my drinks from previous Thirsty Thursdays.  Christi had the Mai Tai pictured at the bottom of this post).  After that we walked around a bit more and then ended up at the hotel bar.  And before you make a I-cannot-believe-you’re-in-Hawaii-just-sitting-at-the-hotel-bar face at me, it’s not the standard-tucked-away-in-the-back-of-the-hotel bar.  It was a rooftop hotel bar where you could lounge by the pool or overlook the beach.  And the drink of the day was none other than the Mai Tai.

Ironically, the Mai Tai did not originate in Hawaii or any where in Polynesia (where it tends to be the go-to drink), but in San Francisco.

Like all great things, there are some discrepancies about who created it and when, but the over all consensus seems to lean towards Trader Vic’s in the mid 1940s.  I don’t really know enough to weigh in heavily one way or another.  Plus, in the grand scheme of things Mai Tais are not my drink of choice–even in Hawaii–so I’ll leave the debating up to the aficionados.

However, I feel like with all this talk about Mai Tais, I’d be remiss if I didn’t leave you with a recipe for one!  I found Trader Vic’s Original Mai Tai recipe in an article by Rick Carroll.  If you click on the link, he is kind enough to give you a brief history of the mai tai, the recipe, and a list of places throughout the islands where you should drink one.

Trader Vic’s Original Mai Tai

• Pour only 80 proof J. Wray & Nephew Rum over shaved ice.
• Add juice from half a fresh lime.
• Some orange curacao.
• A dash of rock candy syrup.
• A dollop of French orgeat (it’s an almond syrup usually made with rose or orange flower water).
• Shake vigorously.
• Add a sprig of fresh mint.

I’m also going to suggest an umbrella…just because!

Aloha!