Name: Mai Tai (Beaumont-Gantt's)
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 12 fresh Mint leaves; 45 ml Jamaican OP aged rum; 30 ml Light white rum; 22.5 ml Triple sec; 15 ml Falernum liqueur; 30 ml Lime juice; 30 ml Pink grapefruit juice; 2 dash Aromatic bitters

Mai Tai (Beaumont-Gantt's)
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Serve in an Old-fashioned glass

Ingredients:
12 fresh	Mint leaves
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Jamaican-style overproof aged pot still rum
1 oz	Light white rum (charcoal-filtered 1-4 years old)
³⁄₄ oz	Cointreau triple sec liqueur
¹⁄₂ oz	Difford's Falernum liqueur
1 oz	Lime juice (freshly squeezed)
1 oz	Pink grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed)
2 dash	Angostura Aromatic Bitters

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

Garnish: Mint sprig

How to make:

Lightly muddle mint in base of shaker (just to bruise). Add other ingredients, SHAKE with ice and strain glass filled with crushed ice.

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AKA: Don's Mai Tai

Variant:

Mai Tai (Trader Vic's)
Mai Tai (Difford's)
Tia Mia
Bitter Mai Tai
Well-oiled Mai Tai

History:

It is claimed that Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt first served this cocktail in 1933 at his Don The Beachcomber's bar in Hollywood, California. This is eleven years earlier than Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron's Mai Tai origin story.

In his 2014 Potions of the Caribbean, Jeff Berry recounts that Don "told Edward Brownlee [a Tiki-carver and friend of Don] that Vic had derived the Mai Tai's flavour profile from a punch that Vic had particularly liked at the Beachcomber's: "The Q.B. Cooler was the basis for a cocktail he took with him, and he called it the Mai Tai." Fred Fung, who worked as Vic's executive assistant for 41 years, disagrees. "Vic did copy Don The Beachcomber's look. He did go down and copy. But the Mai Tai, he did concoct that, and Carrie Guild did name it."

More cocktails by Don Beach (Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt)

Alcohol content:

2.7 standard drinks
21.65% alc./vol. (21.65° proof)
37.5 grams of pure alcohol

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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John Hinojos

4th October 2024 at 01:55

Loved this. Not a fan of mint, but I do not remember the mai tai at Don the Beachcomber restaurants having mint (yes I am that old).
When you leave out the mint the spicy nature of the Angostura bitters comes through.

Alex Grieb

7th February 2024 at 19:19

I didn't like this variation very much. A lot of the flavours get lost, and it is quite dry. It felt like a slightly bitter daiquiri with a lot of extra steps. I used smith and cross overproof and havana club 3 years for the rums, cointreau and velvet falernum.

Anton Efimov

10th April 2023 at 19:41

К сожалению без оршада не очень. Можно смело добавлять сахарный сироп или лайм сокращать на треть. Может раньше фалернум или куантро были послаще. (Использовал bitter truth Falernum)

Mariusz Twardowski

1st October 2022 at 18:11

Brilliant! Using S&C and omitting orgeat are quite bold changes from the more common recipe and yet the drink still feels like a mai tai while having a much spicier edge...

What Zit Tooya

9th March 2022 at 07:54

Where'd you source this recipe from? Beachbum Berry's listing (taken from the recipe book by Donn Beach's widow Phoebe) has some different ratios, plus 6 drops of Pernod and no muddled mint. Curious where things might've diverged.

John Hinojos

24th May 2022 at 00:38

I have the same books, but one thing we all need to remember about Donn Beach's cocktails, is that nothing was ever written down by specific ingredients. It was by coded ingredients. When he died no one actually new all the ingredients.

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