Pineapple Mai Tai Recipe
Pineapple Mai Tai Ingredients
1 oz / 30 ml Jamaican rum (I used Appleton Signature)
1 oz / 30 ml Martinique rum (I used Clement)
1 oz / 30 ml Chinola Pineapple Liqueur (in place of orange liqueur)
.75 oz / 22 ml Fresh lime juice
.5 oz / 15 ml Orgeat (I used Liber & Co.)
Mint sprig and the spent lime shell, for garnish
How to make a Pineapple Mai Tai
Shake all ingredients with ice and open pour over crushed or pebble ice. Garnish with a mint sprig and the spent lime shell.
The Mai Tai is built on a split rum base, lime, orgeat and orange liqueur. This version keeps all of that except the orange, swapping in Chinola's pineapple liqueur, and the drink turns tropical without turning into fruit punch.
It works because pineapple and orgeat already get along. Orgeat is almond carrying a little orange flower water, and pineapple has enough acid and funk of its own to sit beside a funky Jamaican rum rather than fight it. What you give up is the dry citrus edge that Pierre Ferrand brings to a classic Mai Tai, so this one drinks rounder and a little sweeter.
Chinola's passion fruit bottle is the one most people own. It works here too, and it is the same bottle behind the Chinola passion fruit margarita.
For the version that goes furthest from the original, the Pineapple Rye Tai drops rum altogether and rebuilds it on rye whiskey.
