Nickel City Pineapple Mai Tai

The Nickel City Pineapple Mai Tai is this site's name for a build published by bartender Leandro DiMonriva on his YouTube channel, The Educated Barfly, as part of a recipe collaboration with the pineapple-rum brand Amehla. Instead of folding pineapple juice into the glass — the resort-bar move — it puts a dedicated pineapple rum directly into the split, right alongside an aged rhum agricole. The name nods to "the Nickel City," Buffalo, New York's old nickname; the recipe itself is unchanged from the source.

A Second Rum, Not a Second Juice

Most pineapple Mai Tais get there with pineapple juice, which is fresh but thin and prone to breaking a shake into foam. This build skips it: a pineapple-flavored rum stands in for the fruit, carrying the same tropical signal without adding a perishable juice or extra dilution to the glass.

The rest of the structure stays close to Trader Vic's original — lime, orgeat, and orange curaçao — so the drink still reads as a Mai Tai rather than a punch. It is rum-forward first, tropical second.

The Build

Lime juice, orgeat, and orange curaçao set the sour-and-almond frame; aged rhum agricole and pineapple rum split the base evenly, one oz each, so neither rum buries the other.

Rhum Agricole's Job

Rhum agricole is distilled from fresh cane juice rather than molasses, which gives it a grassy, vegetal edge most rum lacks. That backbone keeps the drink from tipping into a pineapple milkshake — the same balancing act Trader Vic managed by blending Jamaican and Martinique rums in 1944.

Spent Lime, Not a Wedge

The garnish follows Mai Tai tradition rather than tiki-bar excess: the juiced lime half goes back in the glass, and a mint sprig sits on top for aroma. No pineapple wedge, no paper umbrella.

Bottom Line

A one-for-one swap of pineapple juice for pineapple rum sounds like a small move, but it changes the drink's texture more than its flavor — tighter, less diluted, and built to hold up over crushed ice without going watery.

The Mai Tai Family