How to Make a Bitter Mai Tai, a New-School Riff on a Tiki Classic

The Bitter Mai Tai is not the Mai Tai’s redemption. It is the Mai Tai’s revenge. For decades, bartenders have been defaming the Mai Tai, debasing it, making and selling versions of the drink that were childish and incomplex, saccharine and flat. The Bitter Mai Tai is none of those things. The Bitter Mai Tai is the cocktail striking back. 

A brief history: In 1944, “Trader” Vic Bergeron invents a cocktail with a 17-year-old Jamaican rum and fresh lime to balance out the sweetened almond syrup and orange liqueur. It is sharp, lean, strong, and delicious. He (allegedly) gives it to friends visiting from Taihiti, who (allegedly) exclaim “Maita’i roa a’e,” which means something like “The Best of All.” The Mai Tai is born. 

Over the next decade, the Mai Tai spreads. Bergeron himself brought the drink to Hawaii, where it met and incorporated juice: First pineapple, then pomegranate and orange and who knows what else. By the 1970s, Tiki shifts from fad to phenomenon, and you can find a cocktail called a “Mai Tai” all across the country, though with varying levels of fidelity—not just to the original recipe, but to really any semblance of balance and flavor. By the 1990s, the Mai Tai is a cliche, it’s kitsch, not a recipe so much as a type of drink that is gaudy, garish, oversweet, and tropical, essentially an alcoholic Hawaiian Punch. The Mai Tai is degraded.

But in the new millenium, bartenders find the original recipe, and bring it back. It starts to appear on menus in tiki bars and non-tiki bars alike, with names like the “OG Mai Tai” or the “1944 Mai Tai” to distinguish it from the sugary garbage the clientele would be expecting, and the public starts to realize that the Mai Tai is not just a respectable drink but a phenomenal one, clean and exacting, a cornerstone of the tiki experience and among the best drinks ever made. The Mai Tai is redeemed.

Then in 2011, at a bar in Brooklyn called Dram, bartender Jeremy Oertel takes it a couple steps further. Inspired by a version he had tried with a hefty pour of Angostura Bitters, he replaces most of the rum in a classic Mai Tai with Campari, the acutely bitter Italian liqueur, and with what’s left of the spirit he recruits Smith & Cross, the powerful Jamaican rum. Oertel almost certainly wasn’t trying to defend the cocktail’s honor, but if you were to try to, this is how you’d do it: dial up the intensity on not one but two different measures, both sharply bitter and monstrously funky. It is boozy and intense, and precise as ever. For decades, the Mai Tai had been slapped around by careless bartenders. The Bitter Mai Tai is the cocktail slapping back. 

The Bitter Mai is also, improbably, absolutely delicious. If the only goal was to make a feral and intense Mai Tai, there are meaner ingredients you could grab (a Malort Mai Tai?), but fortunately for all of us, Oertel was maximizing for deliciousness. He’d go on to embitter other tiki classics (the Brancalada most notably) but the Bitter Mai Tai was first, a taste of the remarkable synergy between tiki classics and the world of amari that would prove addictive. The Bitter Mai Tai is a full-fledged neo classic, first bright with lime and rum, then deep with almond, and then—where a standard Mai Tai would fall away with a lingering malic zing—the Bitter Mai Tai rises in a bold third act, humming with bitterness and the banana-funk of the rum. It’s a Mai Tai that starts friendly, all smiles, but by the end of each sip has asserted its dominance. If you were expecting something sweet and simple, it would feel like retribution. But if you’re expecting a mature, bold, and savagely delicious cocktail, the Bitter Mai Tai is on your side.

Bitter Mai Tai

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with a handful of crushed ice, and briefly “whip” shake just to flash-chill and incorporate all the ingredients. Pour ice and all into a big mug or glass, top with crushed ice, and garnish with a mint sprig and/or lime wedge or wheel.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Campari: Campari is indispensable. There are competitors, certainly, and your mileage may vary with them, but there’s a reason for Campari’s ubiquity: Its balance, flavor, proof, sweetness, and bitterness are just right.

Rum: This was specifically designed for Smith & Cross, the 114-proof, funky Jamaican rum, and that’s good advice. You can switch up the rum if you want to, but the combination of high-proof (to keep sweetness in check) and inimitable Jamaican funk (for flavor) is pretty important—if you don’t have Smith & Cross, try of Doctor Bird or Hamilton’s Pot Still Jamaican Rum, but you may need to add a quarter ounce if the sweetness is too high.

Orange Liqueur: Recipes are split here—half call for the clean juiciness of Cointreau, which has a better or more integrated finish, and the other half call for the brandy notes of Curacao, which has a more interesting front palate but a sharper drop off on the finish. Both are great. I honestly couldn’t choose. Use whatever you have nearest at hand, just make sure it’s high quality and 80 proof (all the best ones are 80 proof).

Orgeat: This drink is taken from good to great by the right orgeat, by which I mean you want one that is redolent of almonds (as opposed to the lighter, more marzipan-forward ones like Giffard, still delicious but not ideal for this setting). In this field are Liquid Alchemist, Small Hand Foods, and Liber & Co., among others. You might have different brands near you, but if it looks like it was made with almonds, you’re on the right track.