SWIZZLES part 5 – Full Proof Mai Kai Swizzle

It`s time to add another swizzle to this blog and i just recently stumbled on a post over at the Atomic Grog blog about the Mai Kai Swizzle and it got me thirsty… and since i had never made that swizzle i tried it – and i find it tasty.

Unfortunately i don´t have the same rum as the recipe called for so i might have missed that thing which makes it stand out a bit. That said it doesn´t mean you can`t make it nice with other rums and that´s the beauty of rums – you can create so much variation.

Just one thing…i prefer strong drinks over weak and this one is weak or mild so allow me to pimp it up a little…

The post says it needs that golden rum from Appleton but since i don´t have it i decided to use Appleton Extra – one of my favorite rums…because i have many – and let the drink get a healthy dose of two overproof or strong rums.

I really like overproof rum – when used right it takes a cocktail or tiki drink to the next level, not just in strength but also flavor and we know that stronger proof concentrates flavors better. But one needs to be careful though, it´s so easy to have one drink too much..

I luckily have a few overproof and full proof rums to chose from at various strengths –

Coruba overproof (75%), Lemon Hart 151(75.5 %), Pusser´s overproof (70%), Plantation dark overproof (73%) Smith and Cross ( 57%) Tiki Lover`s Dark (57%) and JWray overproof (63%) and in this drink i used the Plantation dark overproof because it´s flavor profile fitted the other rum best i figured.

What i call “full-proof” are those that are between 50 – 60% ABV. I don´t know if that`s what they are officially called but to me it sounds appropriate…

The swizzling technique is another thing to mention but instead of writing the same things again i point you readers to this excellent post. It´s fun to swizzle and it gets even better if you have one of those original swizzle sticks from the swizzle stick tree - (Quararibea turbinata) which grows in the Caribbean and whose branches grows in a forked star shaped fashion thus producing perfect swizzle sticks! – called bois lele on Martinique.

Bois lele.The thicker one is from Guyana and the other is from Martinique.

You can get the original swizzle sticks here.

So now i got the ingredients, the shaker and glass, the ice and the swizzle stick or bar spoon, let´s get started!

FULL PROOF MAI KAI SWIZZLE

1.5 oz fresh-squeezed orange juice
0.5 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
0.5 oz mango juice
0.5 oz rich sugarcane syrup - (2 parts sugar to 1 part water, heated and cooled)
0.25 oz orgeat (almond) syrup
1/8 oz falernum
1 oz Appleton Extra Jamaican rum
1 oz Smith and Cross jamaican rum
Float 0.5 oz Plantation overproof rum on top of the drink

Swizzle in cocktail shaker with 1 cup crushed ice. Pour into a stemmed cocktail glass and fill up with more crushed ice if needed and garnish with a mango slice – or like i did here with my fruit carving knife – a palm frond out of the mango fruit.

The combination of mango juice, orgeat and falernum is a bit special and very tasty, very tropical. Since i don´t have Appleton Special Gold rum i can`t compare this stronger version with the original, all i can say is that it´s tasty and rummy.

The other swizzles in the swizzle series on this blog are these:

1 – Swizzles part one - Queenspark Swizzle and Creole Swizzle

2 - Chartreuse Swizzle with caramelized demerara sugar

3 - 151 swizzle

4 - Swordfighter swizzle

Keep swizzling!