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Since most Tiki drinks are overly sweet, we eliminated the sugar syrup and used a mixture of dark Jamaican rum and Guyana rum. Our rum was Hamilton Strong Water Lost Voyage rum. Strong Water is a new tiki bar in Southern California and this rum was blended for them. It is outstanding in a cocktail or over ice.

I just remade this to try my homemade pistachio "orgeat". 1.5 Oz Dos Maderas 5+5, 0.5 Oz coconut-infused Smith and Cross, and Pierre Ferrand curacao. Significantly different from the almond orgeat version, but equally delicious, with a more pronounced nut character.

Per Theo Clark's comment below, I made with 1.5 oz of Appleton Estate and 1/2 oz of Plantation overproof rum. An extremely well-balanced cocktail, both in between sweet / sour and gentle / boozy. I also doubled the sugar syrup as mine was 1:1

I do this with 1.5 ounces of Jamaican rum, and half an ounce of Wray & nephew overproof white rum and it is one of the most dangerously enjoyable cocktails I have ever made. I mixed 7 of these over the last five days of a beach vacation and cannot recommend it enough. The overproof rum makes it sparkle like nothing else.

Outstanding! I totally get how and why folks got hammered and laid around drinking these! I hybridized this recipe w/ Difford's version, adding a mix Gosling's 151 and Plantation Rum, plus a 1/4 oz each of Amaretto and Falernum to boost the Carribean and nutty notes.

Not entirely sold on the recipe's construction - it's grabbing a Havana 7 Year by default instead of a Jamaican which is a real shame. Local rum supplies vary with the weather, but I reacquainted myself using Myer's Rum, that Jamaican pot still rum bottled like it's still the 1800s in a squat square bottle that could just as easily have contained Snake Oil. Delicious. Cut right through all the dilution that limes and crushed ice could muster. Trader Vic was a genius.

Just made this against n with Denizen Rum, a replica of the original Wray & Nephew. Really good.

Week 4 & final quest for a better "mai tai": Omit curacao and simple syrup, do instead 20ML lime,orgeat syrup,passion fruit puree.
The outcome is delicious balanced richness. With this I finish my experimentation with Mai tais. The original felt flat and thus lead to one of my top 5 ever for sure. Maybe id try Diffords mai tais recipe if i ever get all the ingredients but for now these 2 Rifts will serve me well. Tip of the hat to Trade Vic.