Mai Tai 3000

My last entry until I get back from Tales of the Cocktail will be a final treat from the land of molecular mixology (MM). As I am moderating this introductory seminar, and want to get bums in the seats, I feel that it would only be fitting that I continue the theme of late. This one was created for a Slovakian bar magazine as well: as of late it appears that media demand the most esoteric of these techniques.

Although I usually avoid solid “drinks”, this one was actually pretty tasty, and would be a great warm-up “drink” to get ones palate awake.

1 lime chip
1 rum square
1 dollop orgeat foam
1 pinch fine orange zest
build in order given
To “drink”: place all in mouth at once and chew

Lime Chip

freeze one lime
slice thinly in a meat slicer
soak in simple syrup
place on tray and place in oven at 100˚ F until sugar has slightly caramelized
let cool

Rum Square

3 oz water
1 tsp agar
3 oz Appleton V/X rum
1 oz Lemonhart 151 rum
place water and agar in a pot for 15 minutes
heat until all agar is dissolved
add rums and stir well
pour carefully into a shallow tray and refrigerate
cut into squares when solid

Orgeat Foam

4 oz orgeat
2 oz water
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3 egg whites
place all ingredients into an ISI charger and charge

Orange Zest

Freshly grate orange peel with a fine spice grater.

This is an obvious deconstruction of that 1944 Trader Vic classic, the Mai Tai. Trader Vic’s original recipe called for rum, lime, orange curaçao, rock candy and orgeat. When building the recipe for the Mai Tai 3000, I had to keep in mind all of these flavors in order for the “drink” to be recognizable. The rock candy was replaced with the simple syrup that soaked the lime chips, and the curaçao was replaced by a touch of orange zest on top of the foam. It is important not to go overboard with zest as it is extremely flavorful and will easily overtake the all other flavors. I chose zest over Cointreau dust as I wanted this “cocktail” to have a brightness to it that will get the consumers taste buds tingling.

So there you have it, my last MM post for some time (surely you know that I prefer obscure classics and their twists by now!), and my last post for at least a week, as I will be in the Big Easy, vainly attempting to remain coherent and sober (where’s the WTCU when you need them?!?!)

Drink and picture by:
Jamie Boudreau
Cocktail Whisperer

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~ by Jamie Boudreau on July 13, 2008.