Fist of Kitchen presents… Eat it: China!

• 1 oz. dark Jamaican rum
• 1 oz. amber rum
• ¾ oz. fresh lime juice
• ½ oz. orange Curaçao
• ¼ oz. orgeat
• ¼ oz. simple syrup

If Miriam orders a mai tai, I know whats coming after her first sip: “oh, right. It’s piña coladas that I like.” That didn’t happen today!

Maita’i is Tahitian for “good,” and for the first time we had one that lived up to that and more. What made this stand apart from the slushy, pre-mixed and disappointing norm? Decent, standard rums (Meyers Original and Bacardi Gold)—and, more importantly, fresh lime juice and real orgeat.

Orgeat (pronounced something like or-JHwAH) is basically almond-flavored simple syrup, and if you can actually find it at a store, it’s the Torani stuff that goes into Starbucks-y, sugary, coffee milkshakes “frappachino blended beverages.” DON’T BUY. It takes about ten minutes to make, and then you can make almond brittle out of the spent nuts. You do have to plan ahead by a day, but the syrup keeps for a long time.

We used Kaiser Penguin’s recipe, and cut it in half:

• ¾ raw almonds
• 2 c. sugar
• 1 c. water
• 2 dashes orange flower water
• 2 dashes rose water

Toast the almonds in the oven, bash them up in the Cuisinart, and simmer in the (dissolved) sugar water for two minutes. Let cool and rest for at least twelve hours. Strain, with cheesecloth if you have it. Stir in the flavored waters, and that’s it. We had rose water (found it in the baking aisle) but couldn’t find orange flower water so just used a drop of orange extract.