Latest / Into The Barchive / The Mai Tai: Trader Vic vs. Don the Beachcomber
Transcript
- ITB: Into the bark eye where the past comes alive. Sip the tails, let them drive. Welcome to the bark hive. Hello, Barkabists, and welcome back to Into the Barkive, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories, people, and cocktails that have shaped the way we drink. I'm Tim Wright, your above average curious drinker, and your slightly tipsy tour guy through Boo's history. And I'm Dr. Blake Jones, historian, certified specialist of spirits and mexologist here to pour out the stories behind what's in your glass. On our last episode, we explored the whiskey sour. ⁓ One of the foundational members of the entire sp sour family, right? ⁓ so today we're going to take that same approach, go template base, but go a little warmer. Absolutely, and we're headed to the Mai Thai. And the Mai Thai is often a misunderstood drink. When you mention the name Mai Thai, most people picture oversized souvenir glasses, bright red grenadine, pineapple juice, umbrellas. And really enough fruit garnish to qualify as a small produce section. But that's funny because the original Mai Thai was none of those things, right? What was it? So the original Mai Thai, as envisioned by Trader Vic, is really remarkably restrained. Rum, lime, ⁓ orange curacao, or jac, and a little touch of extra sugar. So five ingredients. Yeah. Five ingredients that somehow taste like an entire tropical vacation. Okay, so today we're gonna separate that history from mythology. Yeah, and then we're gonna look at and revisit one of the world's ⁓ cocktail world's greatest rivalries, ⁓ Mitch Trader Vic's legendary 1944 Mai Tai. Okay. And then we're gonna head across town to Don the Beachcombers Bar. That rivalry. Yeah, that rivalry. And we're gonna make one of his finest rum drinks, the QB cooler. And along the way, we're going to ask a deceptively simple question. Who really invented the Mai Thai? So grab your favorite shaker, scoop up some pebble ice, and let's get into the bark eye. Trader Vicks Classic Mai Thai. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take two ounces of an aged rum straight into our shaking gin. Next will be half ounce of dry curacao. Thing that makes this pop, one ounce of lime juice. Next ingredient, it's gonna be a half ounce of orgat. Don't forget orjot is just a nut syrup. This one right here just happens to be almond. And lastly, just to bring up that sugar level a little bit more, we're gonna go quarter ounce of a ⁓ rich simple syrup. And this one is a two to one ratio, rich symbol. Now we'll do a little whoop shake. A little bit of pebble ice. Not too much, not too crazy. You have a shift? After we've done shaking, we actually have to take a beautiful Trader Vicks glass. We'll pop the tin. Party four. nail top with pebble ice. And great thing about this one? Always beautiful, lovely. Give yourself some mint on top. Wake it up. And my friends, we have Trader Bix Classic Mai Thai. While Trader Vic's classic Mai Thai was invented in 1944, Don the Beachcomers QB cooler comes from 1937, hence part of this controversy we're going to talk about. So into our flash blend tin calls for one ounce of a white Puerto Rican rum. I'm using a denizen five-year white rum, so maybe a little more character than ⁓ like a Bacardi or a Don Q. Then we're gonna add one ounce of a gold Jamaican rum. So I've got Planarese, 100% pot stilled Jamaican rum here that has a little age on it. From there we're going to do a half ounce of a dark demarura rum. So I've got the denizen vatta dark that has a pretty hefty component from Guyana. Then we're going to do a quarter of an ounce of Velvet Falernum, which is just a rum-based liqueur of lime, clove, and almond. ⁓ Lower end ABV, the John D. Taylor Velvet Palernum is the classic choice here. Now on to the citrus. We've got one ounce of orange juice. From there half an ounce of lime juice. And now we'll move on to our other syrups and sweeteners. So we've got half an ounce of a one-to-one honey syrup. So that's one part honey, one part water. And then to give it a little pizzazz, we've got a half teaspoon of a ginger syrup. And so just an easy cheat to make this is to get like a ginger juice and do equal part sugar. And we'll call that good, especially after a gavel spillage there. Two dashes of Angostura bitters using a Japanese dasher. So double that to four. And then we're gonna add one ounce of club soda. And this will help kind of dilute the drink and thin it out. Now, a lot of times you wouldn't like shank a carbonated ingredient in a cocktail, but we're flash blending, ⁓ so this will help froth it up a little more, and then put it in our Hamilton Beach drink mixer or a flash blender and blend for five seconds. And then we'll call that good and then take a nice rocks glass. And pour directly from our drink mixer tin. And then we'll add just a little extra pebble ice on top of that. Just to make sure we got, then I had a little more in my mixer tin. And then finally, just like the classic Mai Thai, we're gonna take cement as the garnish. kinda pop it in the drink as so and we have Don Beach's Cube Cool Worker. Cheers. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context, the myth of the Mai Thai. So, I mean, I guess we need to get one thing out of the way from the get-go. The Mai Thai is probably the single most abused classic cocktail in existence. That is a bold statement. ⁓ hey, I stand by it. Like, if you go to enough beach bars, you'll find drinks called Mai Thai. Made with orange juice, pineapple juice, dark rum floats, grenadine, coconut cream, you name it. None of those of which contain those original specs from Trader Vic's original recipe. ⁓ yeah, I mean, exactly. The irony is that the authentic Trader Vic Mai Thai is actually pretty dry. It's balanced, it's elegant. It's almost minimalist in a way. Four ingredients. Done. Well, maybe five. Yeah. So we've got I guess it would be more common as a perfectly tuned daiquiri, like just looking at that way than it is some kind of frozen vacation drink. Absolutely. It's another example of something that we've discussed repeatedly on the show. Cocktails evolve, restaurants adapt recipes to local tastes. And eventually sometimes the adaptation becomes more famous than the original. Then let's talk tiki culture. Dr. Jones, how did the Mai Thai emerge? I mean, every great culinary movement seems to produce this type of rivalry. Wine, for example, we've got Bordeaux versus Burgundy. in meat smoking, we've got Texas barbecue versus Memphis barbecue. And Tiki had Don the Beachcomer versus Trader Vic. So we've talked about ⁓ tiki cocktails in previous episodes, right? Mm-hmm. People now know these names. They shouldn't if this is your first time listening in, you might not have heard them before, but we've talked about both of these gentlemen and how they have ⁓ put their stamp on tiki culture. Yeah, and in many ways, they're more than just colorful personalities, they're opposing philosophies. Okay, so Don the Beachcomber had this long ass name I couldn't remember. So what is it again? Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gant. Okay, so better known as Don the Beachcomber. Yep. Okay. So he opened this bar in Hollywood in 1934 almost immediately after Prohibition ends. And most historians credit him with inventing the American Tropical cocktail and tiki culture. I mean, in many ways, Don was a magician. His drinks would contain two, three, or sometimes four rums. He developed secret syrups, spice blends, coded recipes. You know, this is where bartenders mix ingredients labeled only by numbers, and the mystery was part of the experience. ⁓ this was the the quote, ⁓ Why let one rum do what more can or something like that? What was the what was that saying? U ⁓ essentially, what one rum rum can't do, three can. Yeah. And then that's for Don. Now, Trader Vic, though. Trader Vic admired Don's success, ⁓ but he took Tiki in a different direction. Trader Vic, his real name was Victor Bergeron, loved complexity too. But a lot of times he wanted his drinks to showcase individual ingredients rather than having all these layers of mystery. And in many ways, the Mai Thai is a clear expression of that philosophy. Five ingredients, no secret mixes. I mean, Don or excuse me, Vic published the recipe to the Mai Thai. Like he part of his empire wasn't just the bars he owned, it was The selling the tiki mugs, selling books, selling mixes, selling all these ingredients. He was selling a brand while Don was selling the mystery. Again, it still intrigues me of different back of the house staffs were responsible for putting a specific bottle, which was several different mixes, and then the bartenders would know I only need to use these three bottles. This much as the portion from those bottles. The mystery there. Adding layers of flavor and just intrigue, right? The Mai Thai's origin story. So we've talked about this in the intro. Where did it come from? I heard years earlier, and by the years that you told me, technically it wouldn't be Don the Beachcomber came first. So Yeah. So this is of course where the story gets messy. Trader Vic has always maintained that he invented the Mai Thai in nineteen forty-four in his Oakland restaurant. And according to the account, he mixed a drink featuring 17-year-old J. Ray and nephew Jamaican rum for his friends Carrie and Eastam Guild who were visiting from Tahiti. Carrie took one sip of this concoction and exclaimed, My Thai Roa I, which Vic translated as out of this world, the best. Okay. And it's kind of one of the most famous origin stories in cocktail history. So my tie means the best. But ⁓ we've had these conversations before. Don the Beachcomber wasn't buying this 1944 story though. Like, He thought there was something more behind there. Yeah, Don believed that Vic had copied and stolen his QB cooler recipe, ⁓ which he had developed in 1937, ⁓ full seven years before Vic's 1944 Mai Thai. And as we discovered, like as we've sipped both cocktails, ⁓ they have some pretty strong similarities in flavor, but it's Astonishing on the other hand that Trader Vic could reverse engineer this recipe, the QB cooler, with the only common ingredients being like rum and lime juice. Yeah, I was about to say, I want him to say that rum was the ink, like because those were very different rums, especially with ⁓ Don putting three in his, right? Yes. We use an eight-year in this in the original Trader Vic, the classic. The only same ingredient was lime. And even there, I had an ounce. You had ⁓ a half ounce. Half ounce. Like again, I called out the lime is what makes this one pop. Mm-hmm. The ginger soap and everything else in this one is what's h helping elevate there. I mean, shame, shame, shame on you, Don. I don't s well, yes, they're both fruity and tropical. I don't get it, but that's just me. Yeah, well, and later in the nineteen fifties, Don capitalized on the popularity of the Mai Thai and developed his own Mai Thai swizzle cocktail as a combination of Jamaican and Cuban rums, quantre, grapefruit and lime juices, phalernum, bitters, and pernault. So he kind of got his hooks on the name Mai Thai and developed his own drink. But again, he said it was Vic was copying this QB cooler. And this is where it actually, instead of both gentlemen having this understanding and agre agreement, this is where the rivalry actually ratchets up a little bit more. Yeah, in fact, a legal battle breaks out over the name Mai Tai in the 1960s. So both Trader Vic Who had already been building this commercial empire beyond bars, Don the Beachcomber is like, huh, maybe beyond just owning bars, I can affix my brand to products like sauces and syrups and bottled My Thai mixes. And so there was this co-packer that had licensed Don the Beachcomber's name. Okay. And they went to trademark. A Maai Thai mix. Trader Vic promptly filed a lawsuit over the right to use the name. And in 1970, ⁓ the two sides settled the lawsuit in favor of Trader Vic. And so in many ways, that kind of legally settled the question of who invented the Maya tie. The courts say Trader Vick. So it did not come first, but it was the first to put the stamp and get the stamp of approval. Yeah. Well, again, the name itself, right? And I mean it's one of those things, despite the similarities in flavor profile between the QB cooler and the Mai Thai, they're not the same drink. And of course, Trader Vic drink was the first to kind of ⁓ use that name, Mai Thai. But this rivalry still exists today, even of the most, you know, bona fide tiki enthusiasts, they'll still back one horse or the other. Yeah. I mean, neither man was truly inclined to just fold, even though the court said what they said. Yeah. And and so ⁓ this rivalry has become a continuing part of cocktail history. I would say ⁓ our Mai Thai components now though, because they they these two are such staples. Mm-hmm. Mai Thai components, what what why does it work, right? Like how does the classic Mai Thai and then something that has almost ten ingredients almost resemble but they work? Yeah, so let's start with the classic Mai Thai and if and let's look at what's missing. First. I'm gonna ahead and tell ya. You go to a resort, you're on a cruise, pineapple juice is the first ingredient. Hell, it's probably the most that they put a volume in a in a tri their their My Ties. It gives it that fluffy na no no pineapple juice. Yeah, and either drink and I mean a lot of times there people joke about like, ⁓ you don't know how to make a tropical drink, just throw some rum juice and make it red, right? Yeah. No No pineapple, no orange juice, no grenadine. In Vic's classic Mai Thai, it is the rum that does the heavy lifting. ⁓ I I would say in ⁓ both of our cocktails, while mine only used the one spirit, yours use that you make the Jamaican ⁓ Planaret plantation, bring in some funk. Yeah. My eight year holding up, bringing some bunk. Not crazy, but enough. Yeah. Like That's one key component that I enjoy in my version of a Mai Thai. Yeah. So like a Jamaican component in a classic Mai Thai is essential. Okay. Right. ⁓ the aroma, you of course bring your nose to the glass with buy the mint. Yeah, and then ⁓ for we're we'll call that out now. We are unseasonably hot and humid here in ⁓ in Middle Tennessee. So our mint, while it was nice and bushy this morning, is definitely fading throughout the day. Yeah, and so, but the other source of aroma is the funk of the Jamaican rum. And then again, just focus on that classic. Okay. The lime, as you mentioned, makes it pop. The curacao adds some additional citrus complexity. The orjot, or that almond syrup. ⁓ contributes richness to the cocktail. And so the drink is incredibly layered. And in many ways, I think we need to maybe take some more time to break apart the rum in the classic Mai Tai, because in many ways that's a story in and of itself. Rum isn't just one spirit. Yes. ⁓ rum has so many categories. And depending on the origin of said distillate, the flavor profiles could be immensely different, yet the distillation process is the same. ⁓ just mainly because the fermentation process could be different. Natural yeasts and you're using natural yeast or for that fermentation. And then just the climate itself of how it is being introduced back into the barrels and barrels are being used too. part other flavors. Absolutely. And in many ways, like the Jamaican rum that is classic to the Mai Thai, it brings ripe banana and pineapple and funky esters from the fermentation products. ⁓ some Mai Thai's will split the base and use Jamaican rum and rum agricole from Martinique. Martinique, yeah. And so that's gonna bring some grassy freshness. ⁓ like Some might add a demerara rum, which is gonna add like a burnt brown sugar richness to it. ⁓ modern bartenders oftentimes create Mai Thai blends using rums from different countries. But in the original Mai Thai, Trader Vic used a 17 year old Rey and Nephew Jamaican rum. And the Mai Thai became so popular. That Trader Vic exhausted essentially the entire world supply of that 17-year Ray and Nephew rum in about a year. And then they had to bump it down to like the next years of our next year statement, right? Yeah. So after he essentially ran through all the 17 year in the world, he subbed in a 15-year-old Jamaican rum still from Ray and Nephew. Okay. And as the supplies of the 15-year began to dwindle, he began to stretch it. So he would mix it with other rums like karuba dark Jamaican rum. Okay. Eventually, he ran out of the 15-year-old rum. So he began blending Jamaican rum with molasses based rum from Martinique to match the flavor profile of the 17-year rum. Okay. From the original Mai Thai. And just kind of a little fun points of trivia. As far as we know, there all the 17-year-old Ray and Nephew rum that is left in the world from this time period. There's one unopened bottle ⁓ in Martin Kate's personal collection, the owner of Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco. There are six bottles of Barrelproof samples from Ray and Nephew's lab. ⁓ in fact, that at this point when they discover them, they're all gone now. Okay. ⁓ in fact, one of those barrelproof samples was used in the world's most expensive Mai Thai. And how much was that? Thirteen hundred dollars. Woo! ⁓ and so and these barrelproof samples were at like seventy-five point two ABV, not the original, which would have been like 43%. Okay. So people have tried to capture that original My Thai flavor. So Appleton Reserve, which is part of the same company as Ray and Nephew, ⁓ a couple years ago. They released a 17 year old rung, but it was only 1500 bottles and a limited release. Yep. No. Did not get one of those. And now you may say to yourself, like, ⁓ well, why don't you just use Appleton 21? You know, they've got an even higher age statement that is more commercially available. It's they the 17 year use the same marks or the same fermentation protocols from the 1930s and 40s. Is part of what made this edition special, is that they were really leaning in to replicate that flavor. And so like you used ⁓ the denizen, right? Eight year. Yeah. So this eight-year merchant's reserve, this was Martin Kate from Smuggler's Cove. Yep. He was trying to replicate one of Trader Vic's like mix and match formulas. Okay. ⁓ with a mix of Jamaican and Martinique rums. Now, one of the classic mistakes bartenders make is they're like, ⁓ One part Jamaican rum, one part Martinique rum. Yeah, because they immediately go for rum agricole, assuming Martinique rum means rum agricole, but the Martinique component that Trader Vic used was actually molasses rather than cane juice-based rum. And so, like part of the reason like we chose to use the Denizin eight years, like that bottle was specifically engineered. For the Mai Thai by the team at Smuggler's Cove. Like if you order a Mai Thai at Smuggler's Cove, that's their go-to. That's what they do. With such a special rum that was used in the original Mai Thai. I would say that's why this one was so simple in its complexity, because he didn't want it to be run down with extra juices, no orange juice, no pineapple of course, no pineapple juice, but heck, again, one juice in mind. I think you had at least two three syrups, like and it the list could have gone on and on. Like he was using a delicate thing and he knew that he wanted it to be the star of the show. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so so he keeps it Vic keeps it simple here to feature the rum. Then you have the fresh lime with the structure and backbone. So, you know, if you don't have the acidity, the drink becomes flabby. Now the curacal, it is meant to provide bitter orange. Okay. So it's not like this provides orange juice. So like the orange notes you pick up. And both cocktails come from different sources, orange juice versus orange curaceous. Yeah. ⁓ fresh sweeter, fresh bitter. I would say my would be more aromatic too than say yours, because it could get lost in the other flavors or aromas that are coming out of your cocktail. Absolutely. And the juice doesn't always capture the essence of the oils. The next ingredient that we have is the orgat then. And in many ways, the orjata is the soul of the drink. ⁓ an orjot classically is an almond syrup flavored with some orange blossom water, and it not only adds sweetness, it adds texture, right? Yep. ⁓ adds some viscosity. And without orjada, it's not really a mai tie. Now, on the other hand, you went in your demonstration talked about being a nut syrup. So classically, orjada is almond. But you can make urgent out of like any type of nut. And that's where I was going to lean into it right here. use the exact same specs, you know, liking my Georgia pecans, but making a pecan urgent or making a cashew or making a pistachio. Or like in Hawaii, they would do like a macadamia nut urgent. Yeah, playing into those, but I remember doing like a almost the I wouldn't call it a praline riff, but toast the ⁓ the pecans first, and then making the ⁓ adding the water and the sugar to it to blend down and then straining it out and then using that, but keep the same rum, keep the same amount of curacao, keep the same amount of lime juice. Texturally, it goes, but flavor wise, I now had a slightly different, maybe even darker, richer Mai Thai. Yeah. Well, and then the final component, some people in their Mai Thai recipes just bump up their orgat, that extra quarter of an ounce. But in Vic's classic recipe he called for what he ⁓ term rock candy syrup. Yep. And so we really don't know like what like you can buy from Trader Vic's website rock candy syrup, but like a rich simple syrup so you get some extra texture and sweetness. And like if you leave a rich simple syrup too long, eventually it will form crystals like rock candy. ⁓ that just adds that little extra texture to it to balance it out because sometimes if you don't, the lime can be a bit much. And that's where I mean, without the orjot, a my tie is not really a my tie. I mean, it goes back to it's more like a it is the daiquiri, right? It becomes the daiquiri. ⁓ we've re referenced earlier the sour templates. ⁓ the t sour template. Many a times it's the spirit, the citrus, the sweetener. The Mai Type follows that formula. Yeah. Where does it vary? I mean, and it adds that modifier, so like a daisy with the Drake or a Sal, but and then, you know, otherwise it's essentially a sour daisy in that template and just you know, modifies the proportions a little. I'm gonna go a little artsy with you. It's like you take ⁓ you're taking a daiquiri, right, and you're adding some harmony to it to make some really good like vocals that just makes it all blend together very well. ⁓ absolutely. Everything supports this like lead singer and then it's not stealing the spotlight though. Mm-hmm. The QB cooler, buddy. How does the QB cooler differ from the Mai Thai? So As we conceptualize this episode, rather than make making the classic Mai Tai and then a modern riff on the Mai Thai, we thought it would be more interesting to compare the philosophies of the two men at the center of today's story, the conflict between Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber. So while Trader Vic gave us simplicity, Don the Beachcomber did something very different. So if the classic Mai Thai is an exercise and restraint, the QB cooler is controlled excess. There's more fruit, more spice, more layers competing for your attention. I have ⁓ so I mentioned there's sweeteners left and right. You had the of course the ginger is there because it's made to be that pop note. Probably goes very well with the velvet filarin I'm trying some of those spices that they're and just enhancing them. The honey syrup. Mm-hmm. Why in the world? The honey is helping the helping soften the acidity, right? Okay. Of the orange and lime juices. ⁓ you know, you still have that Jamaican rum providing some funky backbone. Yep. You've got the demarura rum to kind of give some richness, and then that white rum to kind of just amp up the ABV a little without letting the Funk or the richness of the demerur like overpower the drink. It's holding every it's holding the other two in check. Yes. Yes. And so Don, as he often does, is layering flavors. So again, multiple rums, three rums, multiple sweeteners. So you've got the velvet phalernum, the liqueur, the honey syrup, and the splash of ginger syrup, multiple citri with lime and orange. I mean, this is. Perfectly illustrates Don's style and then pour it over Crashed Strice. I mean it's layered, it's unmistakably Don. So we've got Vic versus Don in a glass in front of us. I think tasting these drinks back to black back explains the rivalry better than any history book could, right? One could say, yeah, if you drink these s side by side, there is a Subtle familiarity, right? But not like again, I wouldn't say that it's close enough to be one stole from somebody else. Maybe it was the idea of Inspired. Inspired. Yeah. So, but Trader Vic trusted exceptional ingredients. We talked about in his Mai Thai. He stripped the drink down to every component because with few ingredients, everything mattered. Don loved this big kind of we did the opposite, like big and bolstrous, right? Cocktail, but his cocktails were almost like that symphonic again. This this dozens of flavors just built upon each other, but existing beautifully in one exceptional drink. Yeah, and I mean neither approach is better. They're just different artistic visions. And together, Trader Vic and Don the Beach comer define what we not now call tiki, right? Yeah. I guess you could say then, without Don, there probably isn't a Traitor Vic based off the way you explained the history to me. Yeah, and without Traitor Vic, the Mai Thai never becomes one of the greatest rum cocktails ever created. So history isn't always about choosing sides? Yeah, sometimes it's just appreciating about how rivals ⁓ push one another to create something extraordinary. In conclusion for today, the Mai Thai isn't just a cocktail, which we come to most of our episodes. Yeah. Instead, the Mai Tai is the centerpiece of one of the greatest debates in cocktail history. Was it inspired by Don? Almost certainly. Then did Traitor Vic create the version that conquered the world? And most historians would and the American court system would say yes. ⁓ and perhaps that's fitting, you know, the Mai Tai embodies Everything tiki ⁓ became after World War II, craftsmanship, escapism, hospitality, a little healthy competition, and just enough mythology to keep bartenders arguing 80 years later. And every time you shake one, you're participating in that story. To conclude this episode, we like to thank you for listening in. Always please like, subscribe. ⁓ we're on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. For your podcast listening, we're on Spotify and Apple. Next episode, we're gonna leave the islands behind to celebrate Bourbon Heritage Month with two modern cocktail classics from one of today's most influential bartenders. Who is that? Eric Castro. And so we'll mix ⁓ the refreshing Kentucky buck and the tropical Iron Ranger exploring. How contemporary bartenders continue writing new chapters in American cocktail history while building on ⁓ the classics we've spent this year discussing. So until next time, whether you're Team Don or your Team Vic, remember that the best cocktails and the best stories are worth sharing. Until next time, keep exploring the past, one drink at a time. As we dive deep. At the bar.