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Pele Utu: Reno’s Amazing Traditional Tiki Bar

Pele Utu is a newish traditional tiki bar located near downtown Reno just north of I-80, sandwiched between the Gateway Inn and Taste of India restaurant. The venue previously served as the bar for the restaurant and had two entrances when the hotel had a medieval theme, but today has a single entrance that includes a little bridge from the foyer into the main room. The large winding bar fills the left side of the room with additional tables, booths, and a small stage for live performances. The bar is dark and moody with intricate brickwork on the ceiling, giving it a cellar vibe.

The bar is the brainchild of longtime tikiphiles Dr. Shocker and Rosie Raddish, a husband and wife team who you can find behind the bar most nights. The duo used previous stints at Ventiki and their longtime passion for the genre to good use, since Pele Utu is well-appointed and features an extensive menu of quality cocktails. Food can be ordered and then delivered from Taste of India next door. Live performances, DJs, or themed nights decorate the weekly calendar while the TV features retro shows like Magnum P.I.

Skipper Mai Tai

Our visit coincided with Yacht Rock Sundays, a retro musical genre I was totally down for. We sat at the bar and Dr. Shocker held court while helping Rosie make our drinks. The Skipper Mai Tai was decent, but I was super impressed by their Hurricane which features Jonathan English Red Fassionola and tastes amazing (it’s also super boozy). I also really dug the Spice Trader and Mrs. Mai Tai’s Kona Kooler. Pele’s Lava Flow features strawberry habanero puree, making this a really interesting variant if you can deal with the spices.

Hanging with Dr. Shocker

We thought that Pele Utu was really great, a true tiki oasis doing things mostly along the traditional lines but mixing it up a bit on the music side to draw in locals unfamiliar with the genre. Featuring great hospitality and killer cocktails, Pele Utu is totally worth seeking out.

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Later Night Excursion to Jungle Bird

Mrs. Mai Tai hadn’t been to Jungle Bird in a while so we made sure to visit during our night in Sacramento, arriving for a reservation at 9 pm. The tiki bar was busy at a time when we’re usually not in attendance but everyone was understanding the mellow mood vibes, so this was a nice relaxing way to finish our crawl.

I was still a little hungry and we enjoyed some pot stickers and crab rangoon (more cheesy than crabby), grooving to the tropical and exotic tunes being played. It is helpful that Jungle Bird has a potency rating for their cocktails since I was looking for something a little lighter, so I truly enjoyed the Glass Fin that features Aperol, orange juice, passionfruit syrup, and ginger ale. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mai Tai really liked the Moonwake Harbor with Jamaican rum, vanilla, and passionfruit foam.

We appreciated our time at Jungle Bird but only stayed for one drink after having been out to several places before. Even on a weekend we found the venue to provide an immersive and traditional tiki bar space that continues to provide very high quality cocktails and food. It’s the best tiki bar in Sacramento.

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Mermaid Shows at Dive Bar Sacramento

Our evening in Sacramento continued with a visit to downtown to check out the mermaid show at Dive Bar. We had a little bit of time to kill and so had some turnovers and Dubai cheesecake at nearby Sana’a Cafe followed by a stroll over to check out the Capitol.

Dive Bar has a nighclub vibe and sweet cocktails featuring coconut rums and the like, so I stuck to a NA Corona. The crowd was mixed though so we didn’t feel to out of place at 8:30 for the first mermaid show of the evening. We previously visited here pre-2020 and the vast aquarium with real fish still looks great. More appealing to the eyes was the performer, a very fit merman that seemed to be very popular with those in attendance.

Mermaid/Mermen shows are a lot of fun of course, so it is great to see that Dive Bar is still an option in Sacramento. As with many other bars, there’s sports on the TVs otherwise and a few couches and tables to socialize with friends.

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Daytripper: Tropical Cocktail bar in Sacramento

Daytripper is a new Richmond Grove Sacramento craft cocktail bar that focuses on agave and cane spirits in a Latin America themed setting. We’d heard great things and despite being open only a few weeks it seems like they’re already in prime form. The menu includes an array of classics from the Caipirinha, Pisco Sour, Paloma, and Ti’ Punch plus a variety of Margaritas, some originals, and NA options.

We arrived a little before 6 pm on Saturday and had to wait for about 10 minutes in line to enter, expected as the venue does not currently take reservations. Upon entering, we immediately saw various Latin American decorative elements, plus a large spirits collection focusing on local spirts from that region. We found a couple seats in the bar area, but the turnover was fairly quick and could have waited only a short bit longer for a table. Service is from a server unless you’re seated at the bar.

I was very intrigued by the Mai Tai, only $12 but still getting rave reviews. Indeed this is a delicious Mai Tai and was told it was made with Charanda from Mexico, Probitas, Denizen (presumably Denizen Light), plus a float of OFTD in the lime shell. It’s really great and is super approachable without heavy grassy or funky notes that I might appreciate but I know can be off-putting to many. It’s a Top 20 Mai Tai of the year so far, and a great value for the price.

Mrs. Mai Tai tried a coffee drink called Carajillo made with tequila, Liquor 43, and espresso – served over ice it was pretty good with a just a hint of tequila. We were quite intrigued by the Miami Vice on the menu and ordered one with two straws. This was by far the best Miami Vice we’ve ever had with the Strawberry Daiquiri component being very well balanced and providing some tart elements to balance the heavier sugar found in the Piña Colada. Even if you don’t love slushy drinks you owe it to yourself to give the Miami Vice a try, it’s that great.

The tropical vibe in Daytripper was so much fun, and they even have a vending machine with some eclectic items inside. They also sell some very nice looking glassware and tassel keychains for sale, with a “clipper club” coming soon. We already love these kind of cocktails but the travel theme expressed on the menu and in the venue is a good way to position it for those who don’t like in the rum or mezcal rabbit holes.

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El Dorado High Ester PM/DHE Rum

This new Demerara rum expression from El Dorado follows a previous “high ester” release a couple years ago that paired Diamond Distillery’s intense Diamond High Ester (DHE) marque with a rare LBI marque. This time they’re pairing DHE with what is probably Diamond’s most famous still, the legendary Port Mourant wooden pot still initially put into service in 1732 (yes, almost 300 years). PM is one of my favorite stills as it produces oily, heavy, and pungent rum that in the best of ways tastes like old leather shoes filled with tobacco. The new expression is aged for 10 years in second fill Bourbon barrels and retails for around $140 for a 750 ml bottle.

Combining PM with the flavorful DHE marque would appear to be a good match so I did some comparisons between the two “high ester” bottles as well as a cask strength single still Port Mourant expression. All of these feature more than ten years of tropical aging, pot still distillation, and a higher ABV, though notably the new PM/DHE is only 51.7% and thus about 5% less potent than the other two.

Tasting these neat, they’re all great and any rum lover would likely enjoy any of them as is. But in comparison I definitely preferred the single still Port Mourant and I also liked the combination of the original LBI/DHE a bit more than the new one.

As we’re want to do, we also tried the PM/DHE in a Mai Tai and this is where a rum like this really shines. It is such a complex set of flavors to savor in the cocktail format, and it really holds up to the dilution to provide a wonderful “rummy” taste that suits the use.

We think that El Dorado is a doing a great job with these expressions geared for rum lovers and collectors, and I feel that the pricing is fair given the rarity of the DHE marque and the high quality of the product. Though I still prefer my PM straight, it’s also lovely when combined with other marques from Diamond’s vast collection of stills.

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Legit Great Drinks at Shipwrecked Paradise Island

Shipwrecked Paradise Island Tiki Bar is the Sacramento location and sister property of the original Shipwrecked in nearby Davis. Located in Midtown near Capitol Park, the bar is basically an adult version of Rainforest Cafe thanks to elaborate set pieces, animatronic snakes, and a jungle theme. They call themselves a tiki bar and while there aren’t tiki idols there are plenty of skulls and stone idols that fall enough into a “big tent” categorization of such things.

We arrived before 5:00 for dinner and drinks, enjoying the edamame and pot stickers. We were prepared for the drinks to be kind of terrible but they were anything but. The Mai Tai comes in a garish “tiki” glass and 99 times out of 100 with that glassware you’d expect it to be too sweet and heavy on juices, but Shipwrecked’s Mai Tai features Appleton 12, Smith & Cross, OFTD, and Clement VSOP rums and is truly excellent. It’s ¾ of the Ultimate Mai Tai blend and features house made orgeat that has flavors that accent the rums perfectly.

Our other drinks were similarly good, including the Ube Espresso Martini that Mrs. Mai Tai loved plus the sweet but not too sweet Banana Boat Bliss that I thought balanced the banana and coconut very well. Capt. Bob’s Bourbon Swizzle is basically a Queen’s Park Swizzle with bourbon replacing the rum, also well-done.

The main interior space features a bar along two sides with booths and a center strip of tall tables, though unfortunately the benches in the booths look like logs and are very hard to sit on. It’s nice and dark with some mostly retro leaning music and plenty of little things to look at amongst the larger set pieces. There’s a covered patio space with some additional booths and a temple theme which is a great option as well.

Patio

Shipwrecked Paradise Island is open Wed-Sun including mid-afternoon on the weekends, 21+ only. While not a traditional tiki bar, we really enjoyed our visit.

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Probitas Green Label Rum

Probitas is a blended rum collaboration between Barbados’ Foursquare distillery and Hampden Estate from Jamaica, known as Veritas outside the United States. The expression launched a few years ago as a 47% “white” rum with bolder flavors than your typical light rum. The blend of Coffey still rum from Barbados and a bit of Hampden’s heavy pot still rum means it has a ton of flavor in a daiquiri or other cocktails where you want the rum to be clear or nearly so.

The collaboration now has a second “green label” expression that is going after the dark rum category for use in Painkillers and Planters Punches. The new expression contains caramel coloring which provides color of course but also imparts flavor you’d recognize from many Demerara rums. The green bottle also ups the ABV to a hearty 57%! There’s no “Navy Strength” moniker here but it clearly is playing in the same area. It’s around $35-40 at retail.

This tastes pretty nice neat in a glass, though that caramel does come at you right up front. It works much better in cocktails including a Mai Tai where the higher ABV means you get a ton of flavor even as the drink dilutes. This seems like it would work best in cocktails without a ton of heavy ingredients, as it isn’t quite as funky as something like Smith & Cross Jamaica rum or rich as dark rums like Worthy Park 109 or Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof.