Tia Mia Cocktail Recipe

The Tia Mia is a contemporary riff on the unique Mai Tai that mixes espadín mezcal, Jamaican rum, orange curaçao, orgeat, and contemporary lime juice. Created in 2010 by bartender Ivy Combine at Julie Reiner’s Hawaiian-themed bar Lani Kai in New York Metropolis, the cocktail was Combine’s first unique recipe to look on an expert menu. Though Lani Kai closed after simply two years, the Tia Mia rapidly earned a following amongst New York bartenders and drinkers alike.

The cocktail later turned a signature at Leyenda, the Brooklyn bar Combine and Reiner co-founded, and was additionally included in Combine’s James Beard Award–successful guide Spirits of Latin America. With its identify as a playful anagram of “Mai Tai,” the Tia Mia stands as each homage and evolution: a tropical traditional reframed by way of the lens of agave spirits.

Why the Tia Mia works

Like Dealer Vic’s unique Mai Tai, the Tia Mia is constructed on the traditional bitter template: spirit, citrus, and sweetener. However as an alternative of leaning solely on rum, Combine splits the bottom between mezcal and Jamaican rum. The mezcal gives smoky depth and savory minerality, whereas the Jamaican rum contributes punchy funk and ripe tropical fruit character. Collectively, they kind a bolder, drier basis than rum alone.

The cocktail makes use of orgeat and orange curaçao for sweetness. Orgeat delivers nutty, almond aromatics that play superbly with mezcal’s earthiness. Curaçao provides refined, dry, citrusy complexity with out overwhelming the drink. Combine deliberately scaled again the curaçao from Dealer Vic’s proportions, preserving the cocktail vibrant, dry, and spirit-forward.

Recent lime juice provides freshness and acidity, tying the drink to its Mai Tai lineage whereas balancing out the sweeteners and the alcohol of the spirit mix. The ensuing cocktail is a considerate replace that feels trendy whereas respecting Dealer Vic’s unique imaginative and prescient for the Mai Tai.