Tia Mia Recipe
A Mai Tai with half the rum swapped for mezcal — orgeat, orange liqueur and lime under a layer of smoke.
- Category: Popular
- Glass: Old fashioned glass
- ABV: 21%
- Difficulty: Medium
Ingredients
- Mezcal30 ml (1 oz)
- Dark Jamaican rum30 ml (1 oz)
- Cointreau15 ml (0.5 oz)
- Orgeat syrup15 ml (0.5 oz)
- Fresh lime juice22 ml (0.7 oz)
How to Make It
- Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
- Shake briefly to chill without over-diluting.
- Strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.
- Serve as it is, with a short straw if you like.
Garnish
None
What it tastes like
The citrus acidity leads, there is pineapple and passion fruit in it and smoke dominates the nose.
The technique
Shaking. Anything with juice, syrup, egg white or cream gets shaken: the shaker chills the drink and adds roughly 20% water, and that water is what takes the edge off. Twelve to fifteen seconds, until the tin frosts over. Under-shaking leaves the drink harsh because it never got enough dilution.
Glass and ice
A heavy-bottomed, wide old fashioned glass. Wide enough for one large cube, which is the point: a big cube has less surface area, so the drink gets cold without getting watery.
Ingredient notes and substitutes
- Mezcal
- The Mexican spirit whose smoke comes from roasting the agave in a stone pit. It can stand in for tequila, but the smoke walks over everything else; starting half and half is the balanced move.
- Dark Jamaican rum
- Jamaican rum is set apart by the banana-and-pineapple note called funk, which comes from long fermentation and cannot be faked with another rum. It is where tiki drinks get their character.
- Cointreau
- The French orange liqueur, 40% alcohol. It is the dry, strong end of triple sec; swap in a cheap triple sec and the drink gets sweeter and loses its backbone.
- Orgeat syrup
- Almond syrup with orange flower water in it — the signature of a Mai Tai. Without it, sweetened almond milk plus a drop of almond extract gets you close.
- Fresh lime juice
- Freshly squeezed lime. Bottled lime tastes cooked and flat; one lime gives about 30 ml. If you have none, half lemon and half grapefruit juice comes closest.
The Story
Created by New York bartender Ivy Mix; the name is an anagram of Mai Tai, the drink it reworks with mezcal.
Frequently asked questions
- How is a Tia Mia mixed?
- It is shaken and served in an old fashioned glass.
- How strong is a Tia Mia?
- Roughly 21% ABV as served — in fortified-wine territory — plan it as a single drink.
- Can a Tia Mia be made without alcohol?
- Simply leaving the spirit out does not work — the body and the bitterness go with it. The 86 alcohol-free recipes in the catalogue are built to hit that balance from the start.
- Is a Tia Mia hard to make?
- Moderate. A shaker or mixing glass plus a strainer covers it.
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Alcoholic drink recipes are intended for those aged 18 and over. Please drink responsibly.