Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The PK Mai Tai! (With Bonus Painkiller Chaser!)

You need a drink. I need a drink. Here are two drinks. They're awesome. One is on fire. Thank me later.

I’d add a little umbrella and some more fruit as garnish in retrospect, but this lets you see the fire clearly.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender, and hoo boy am I just in time. I might have even cut it too close. This has been a WEEK. All right, let’s cut to the chase. I picked up a really awesome bottle and made something cool — a Mai Tai that tastes like a Painkiller. This is peanut-butter-meets-chocolate stuff here, two great tastes in one glass together. But I can read the room. I think we’re at a point where we all want a good drink immediately, instead of watching the bartender show off. Let’s have it both ways: Here’s the recipe for a classic Painkiller, along with my PK Mai Tai. And because it’s been a WEEK, let’s set that sucker on fire. Enough with the small talk, here are the recipes:

Painkiller

1 oz Pusser’s Rum

3 oz pineapple juice 

1 oz creme de coconut

1 oz orange juice

Freshly grated nutmeg

Shake all ingredients except for the nutmeg together and pour into a double old fashioned glass over ice. Sprinkle fresh nutmeg over the cocktail. Garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry.  

PK Mai Tai

2 oz Planteray Cut and Dried Coconut Rum

3/4 oz orgeat

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1/2 oz pineapple demerara syrup

1/4 oz Cointreau

Freshly grated nutmeg

Shake all ingredients except for the nutmeg together and pour into a Mai Tai glass, tiki mug, or double old fashioned glass over pebble ice. Sprinkle grated nutmeg over the cocktail.   

Flaming Garnish

1 expressed, empty lime shell

1 sugar cube

2-4 drops Everclear

Float the lime shell, cut side up, on top of the cocktail. Place the sugar cube on the lime shell. Soak the sugar cube with 2-3 drops of Everclear. Carefully ignite the sugar cube, preferably with a long-handled match. 

Instead of giving you the liner notes for the Painkiller, I’ll refer you to my previous article on this super-popular tiki drink. Trigger warning: It’s all about men behaving badly. I love Pusser’s Rum, but the owner of the company is a colossal jerk. I’d drop his booze from the recipe, but I’m legally obligated to use Pusser’s Rum in any Painkiller cocktail I publish. 

The Mai Tai, on the other hand, is fair game. I used to think that the core recipe for the Mai Tai was sacrosanct. This classic was created by the master, Donn Beach himself, the inventor and patron saint of tiki. Ordering a classic Mai Tai at a tiki bar is my idea of heaven. So when I read a passage in my favorite tiki recipe book referring to a Mai Tai as “basically a nutty margarita” ... well, I needed to lie down. 

Once I recovered from my case of the vapors, I realized that this freeform interpretation of the Mai Tai was rather liberating. There are a host of margarita flavors out there. If you’re enjoying Cinco de Mayo, you’re probably eyeing a dozen choices on your local cantina menu. With some careful swaps, I could do the same sort of exciting things with my beloved Mai Tai recipe. The original Mai Tai was meant to highlight a 17-year-old Jamaican rum; why not take this opportunity to celebrate some exciting new rum choices? The end result is supremely tasty. I’m very proud of it, and plan to make several over the weekend. 

Let's talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot, including my beloved Mai Kai tiki mug. We almost lost this classic tiki bar due to water damage, but they’re rebuilding with the help of investors.

Planteray Cut and Dried Coconut Rum: This is the very first bottle from the brand formerly known as Plantation Rum with the Planteray name on the bottle. Planteray Rum took roughly five years to get their name change in place, and the new name is marketing gobbledygook. A win’s a win. I’ll take it. And this coconut rum is definitely a win — rich, heavy with the flavor of real coconut, and barely sweet. It’s pricey, but there are few good substitutes. Malibu is not an option. There’s so much sugar in that bottle that it doesn’t even qualify as rum anymore. Your best budget option would be Siesta Key Toasted Coconut Rum, a very nice bottle that uses actual coconut as opposed to whatever Malibu is. Mind the sugar levels and add more lime juice to balance the drink if needed. 

Orgeat: This thick, creamy syrup is used to supply the body that would come from creme de coconut in a standard Painkiller. I get mine from Amazon. I have played with homemade alternatives, but syrup made with unsweetened almond milk isn’t thick enough to do the job properly. 

Fresh lime juice: Always use fresh juice. Sing along, now — plastic bottles give plastic juice. Be ready to alter the amount of juice to balance the drink. I like my drinks tart, so adjust as needed. 

Pineapple demerara syrup: Equal parts pineapple juice and Sugar in the Raw, heated until the sugar dissolves. If you’re using a little can of Dole pineapple juice, add ¾ cup sugar. This stuff is magic — fridge-stable pineapple flavor for cocktails with very little acid. Pineapple can take over a cocktail, so the ability to manage the flavor via a syrup is golden. 

Cointreau: I’d be very happy with Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao in here, but none was to be had locally. Grand Marnier or Cointreau will do in a pinch. Ask your liquor store clerk for a pint from behind the counter. 

Nutmeg: Absolutely vital. The earthiness of the nutmeg grounds the sweet, fruity drink perfectly. This is the real secret ingredient that keeps a Painkiller from being an orange juice pina colada. 

Garnish: This garnish is very optional. Don’t set your house on fire for a cocktail. If you really want to maximize the show, however, sprinkle some cinnamon over the flames just before service. The resulting sparkles are spectacular. 

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!  

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OPEN THREAD!