Mai Word

Boxes and Booze

Aug 13

Here’s a bit more schlock for you, a crazy toast to this crazy puzzle. I was fairly certain I wasn’t going to find a great cocktail to pair with this unusual puzzle lock and puzzle box hybrid (although a crappy cocktail would have been apropos, I suppose, but I actually really like this puzzle). In situations like this, I do what Matt did when faced with the dilemma of what to do for the person who has seen it all – I made something new. For a hybrid box, I created a hybrid cocktail, combining two classic cocktails into one monster mashup.

The Mai Tai is a well known, tropical drink often associated with Hawaii, and even more often misunderstood. The drink, when properly made and in its original form (as invented by Trader Vic in 1944 at his Californian bar), is essentially just a fancy daiquiri (a simple combination of rum, lime and sugar). A Mai Tai ideally features pungent Jamaican rum, with the sugar replaced by orgeat, a sweet almond syrup common in tropical (tiki) drinks, and a little nuance provided by orange curacao. It’s a delicious drink when done well in the classic style. If you’re curious about the history of the drink I’ve written about it previously here. Another vintage classic with a modern comeback following is the Last Word, a drink I have also written about extensively. You can find more history as well as a whole category devoted to it here. The Last Word is so popular due to how easy it is to adapt the ingredients, an equal parts combination of gin, lime, maraschino (cherry) liqueur and Chartruese, the herbal French liqueur. For this mad mixology mashup, I’ve retained the rum from the Mai Tai in place of the gin from the Last Word. I used Denizen’s Merchant Reserve, a rum specifically formulated to mimic the original Mai Tai rum used by Trader Vic in the forties. I’ve also split the sweetener between the Mai Tai almond and Last word cherry, using liqueurs to dial back the sugar a touch. Finally, I love a little Campari in my Mai Tai (a “Bitter Mai Tai”), because everything’s better with Campari, so a little dose of that goes a long way here as well. But what to call it – perhaps a hybrid of the two cocktails? Mai Word, what a great idea! Cheers!