Trader Vic Bergeron mixed the first Mai Tai in 1944 from two of his rums and "hardly any other ingredients." The drink is five components — two aged rums, lime, orange curaçao, orgeat — and an enormous amount of labor at the bar: per drink, every drink, shaken with crushed ice. A punch bowl rewrites that arithmetic. Mix the five components once for twelve drinks; serve over fresh crushed ice as a ladle. The drink is the same. The bartender's labor is divided by twelve.
Mai Tai Roa Aé — out of this world, the best.
— attributed to Carrie Guild, Tahiti, on tasting the first Mai Tai at Trader Vic's, 1944Two rums, not one
The Mai Tai is defined by its two-rum base: an aged Caribbean rum (Trader Vic's original used a now-extinct 17-year J. Wray) and a funky Jamaican rum that brings the hogo. The standard modern build splits an aged Martinique rhum agricole or Barbados rum with a Jamaican pot-still rum like Smith & Cross or Appleton Estate 12. Don't substitute a single rum unless it's a high-quality blended overproof; the two-rum split is the entire reason the drink works.
Orgeat: the soul of the drink
Orgeat — the almond-orange-flower syrup — is the Mai Tai's signature note. Commercial orgeat works fine for service. Real handmade orgeat (see /ingredients/orgeat/) lifts the drink to a different level: nuttier, less candied, more interesting at the finish. If you're going to the trouble of a 12-serve punch bowl, make the orgeat too.
Lime: 24-48 hour shelf life
The same constraint as the Margarita pitcher applies: fresh lime juice limits the punch bowl to about 48 hours refrigerated. For a longer-shelf-life Mai Tai, substitute Lime Super Juice (/ingredients/lime-super-juice/), which keeps for two to three weeks at the cost of a small loss in aromatic brightness.
Service
Fill double Old Fashioned glasses (or a ceramic tiki mug if you have one) with fresh crushed ice. Ladle 4 oz of punch over. Garnish each drink with a spent lime shell and a fresh mint sprig — the Vic's original garnish, and the visual marker for a Mai Tai.
Do not add ice to the punch bowl itself. The crushed ice belongs in each glass; punch-bowl ice over-dilutes as the bowl sits.