We’re in Georgia for the Inuhele weekender and had some time on Wednesday to Lyft over to Decatur to check out the supposedly “world famous” S.O.S. Tiki Bar. We arrived around 9:00 and found the place to be mostly full but we were happy with seats at the bar. The retro-leaning music and crowd noise were fairly loud, so you could only talk at the bar to person next to you or the bartender but not to someone a couple seats away.
The cocktail menu has a lot of options but I went with the Mai Tai to start, surprised and pleased to see this is served flaming. This is good Mai Tai that includes a little Angostura Bitters, very approachable for someone new to tiki. I also had the Frozen Painkilla that was really great in that format, though I omitted the additional shot of rum.
Mrs. Mai Tai picked Dr. J’s Monkey Disco that includes some bubby in just the right proportion to combine with fruit flavors, amaro, and rum. Her second drink was the Superfast Jellyfish, a daiquiri style cocktail with a huge foamy head. Both of these were good cocktails that indicate modern sensibilities are at play with the bar program.
By far the best drink we had was Caribbean Queen, a rich cocktail featuring rums from Jamaican and Barbados, allspice, grapefruit, and just the right amount of guava. One of the best new tiki cocktails I’ve had in a long time.
All our drinks were elaborately garnished. The bartender at our station was definitely not a veteran and so the garnishing process did take some time and the lead bartender provided a little help flaming the Mai Tai, but our drinks tasted great which was the most important part. She seemed enthused about the genre, referencing nearby books Easy Tiki, Smuggler’s Cove, and Beachbum Berry Remixed. The team also did well making an off-menu Kingston Negroni for my neighbor at the bar.
S.O.S. is in a nice neighborhood with some other restaurants and bars, including Victory Sandwich which shares the building and kitchen. We didn’t try any of the bites at S.O.S. but have heard good things from others. The decor and vibe were really nice here, plus great service and fab cocktails.
