Author: Kevin Crossman

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Cane Tiki Room

Central California’s newest tiki bar is Cane Tiki Room, located in downtown Paso Robles. As drinking destinations go, Paso’s downtown has some great cocktail bars, plenty of craft beer, and every third storefront is wine tasting. So a tiki bar certainly is a unique offering to appeal to the locals and tourists who come to downtown to imbibe.

Mrs. Mai Tai and I arrived about ten minutes before 4:00 pm when they opened on Saturday. There was a large group ahead of us, but the line soon grew and grew. It was probably twenty deep and the place filled up fast with everyone being reminded of the 90 minute time limit. We saw several groups come in for a one-and-done cocktail, many of which had already been our drinking already. So it was that kind of clientele.

But that clientele had a pretty good experience. Cane Tiki Room is nicely appointed with some coherent and thematic art, plus straight exotica music to set the mood. There is a host station and plenty of wait staff and bartenders, too. While we didn’t partake in the food, they do feature many popular Hawaiian and Chinese favorites. There is a very healthy selection of premium rums and spirits.

We had three rounds of drinks before we left for dinner elsewhere, and found the quality of the cocktails to be quite good. There are a mix of classic stirred cocktails such as the Bumbuzzled (and Old Fashioned riff), but others with interesting ingredients such as Soju Think You Can Dance with Ginger Soju and Yuzu. I liked my Jet Pilot riff called the Space Cadet. The menu is large enough so that everyone has something to try, but not too large to be overwhelming. A skull rating supposedly helps you but I felt that some of the ratings were too low.

Everything seemed pretty damn good… except the Mai Tai made with Macadamia Nut Orgeat, Denizen White Rum, and Cihuatan 12 rum from El Salvador (not one of my favorite rums). Had a funny taste and was really not up to the same level as the rest of the cocktails.

Overall, though, Cane Tiki Room is a welcome addition and we’ll no doubt return.

Soju Think You Can Dane and Mai Tai
Kyle’s Killer Molotav Cocktail
Bumbuzzled and Space Cadet
Swizzle My Granny and El Prez
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Dr. Funk Navy Grog

Unlike the Mai Tai which has a well-established canonical recipe, the Navy Grog does not. There’s the Don the Beachcomber version. There’s the Trader Vic’s version. There are versions that blend key ingredients from both. And then there are places that do something different. This is the Dr. Funk Navy Grog.

Still a heavy cocktail with lots of grapefruit and rum, but it does not lean into the traditional ingredients such as honey or pimento dram. Instead, Dr. Funk introduces a different set of spices including Grapefruit Bitters. It is worth trying and you might even prefer this recipe.

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Dr. Funk March Matchiness Meetup

The South Bay Ohana meetups at Dr. Funk in downtown San Jose are currently the 1st Sunday and 3rd Wednesday of each month. This month the theme was March Matchiness, which gave Mrs. Mai Tai and I an excuse to wear this Witchdoctor matching set we bought a couple years ago and designed by Devon Deveraux.

We finally got to try the food at Dr. Funk and found it be pretty good. Service was great as always, even for us with a larger group and some people coming and going.

Come join us at the next meet-up on Sunday April 3.

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Zombie Grapefruit Shootout

My last cocktail comparison between White Grapefruit juice and Rudy Red juice is a Zombie. For the comparison I decided to use the recipe on the bottle of the Beachbum Berry Zombie Blend from Hamilton Rum since this uses a bit more grapefruit juice than the original 1934 recipe (and significantly less rum, useful since I wasn’t going to drink two full Zombies). The Zombie Blend is pretty great and this does make a very good Zombie.

Unfortunately, from a grapefruit juice comparison the two Zombies tasted nearly identical. I was getting slightly more cinnamon notes from the Ruby version, which might be due to the juice being sweeter and with a lighter body. Or I could simply have measured an ever so slightly different half ounce in the cocktail. I’m pretty sensitive to the cinnamon flavor, and in fact went a little light on the measurement. I compensated by adding an equivalently higher amount of Falernum.

To conclude the Grapefruit Juice Shootout Comparisons:

Thanks to @vonschiltach for the white grapefruits for testing.

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Navy Grog Grapefruit Shootout

My previous White vs. Red Grapefruit juice comparison was with a classic cocktail served up, the Old Friend. In that taste test, I preferred the sweeter Red Grapefruit. But that was a cocktail without a lot of sweeteners.

Today’s comparison is with a tiki classic, the Navy Grog. And the recipe is our own Ultimate Navy Grog that blends the historical recipes from Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic, and includes our potent Ultimate Mai Tai rum blend as one of the base spirits. This recipes includes a full two ounces of sweeteners, counterbalancing 1½ ounces of citrus.

Ultimate Navy Grog
¾ oz Lime Juice
¾ oz Grapefruit Juice
1 oz Honey mix
½ oz Pimento Dram (Hamilton)
½ oz Vanilla Syrup (BG Reynolds)
1½ oz Ultimate Mai Tai Rum
1½ oz Demerara Rum (Hamilton 86)
Shake with crushed ice. After pouring into glass, top with 2 oz of Soda.

I made two Navy Grogs and found that the Red Grapefruit version felt thin on the tongue. Meanwhile, I found that the White Grapefruit introduced a noticeably heavier body to the cocktail, and this version simply tasted better overall. So, the White Grapefruit was the clear victor in this taste test.

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Groovy Greg by Tiki Maniacs

Had to splurge a little on this fun mug from Tiki Maniacs and designed by Dave “Squid” Cohen. The mug comes with a surfboard and a small poster print that features an original cocktail recipe from Kelly Merrell of Trader Sam’s.

The mug celebrates the central dramatic figure of the best three part miniseries in television history. Believe it or not, it is the 50th Anniversary of this epic event – the Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii. The mug even has Greg Brady’s signature stolen tabu tiki.

The mug is really big, so large that it actually dwarfs Greg Brady himself.

Groovy Greg from Tiki Maniacs

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Ultimate Mai Tai Jamaican Rum Blend

As I’ve learned more about rum over the past few years, and tasted hundreds of them, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best rum in the world comes from Jamaica. Most of the world doesn’t know this, because Jamaican rum doesn’t have a cool region-specific name like “Scotch” or “Cachaça” or “Bourbon” to designate a spirt made in a specific locale. But the unique character of Jamaican rum has been known to bartenders and to savvy consumers for decades.

I have been less than enthused by actions of Plantation Rum’s parent company Maison Ferrand when it comes to the draft rum GI (geographical indication) in Barbados, and to a lesser extent the existing GIs for rums from Jamaica and Guyana. I enjoy many of the Plantation Rums, including the Xaymaca and OFTD expressions that are in my Ultimate Mai Tai rum blend, but I don’t love their Barbados expressions with tons of added sugar. And it is exactly the Jamaican Rum GI and other regulations that prevents any producer from adding sugar or other additives to the wonderful Jamaican pot still distillate that goes into Xaymaca. If the market was flooded by “Jamaica Rum” products with sugar and other additives, the spirit wouldn’t have the universally stellar reputation that it currently maintains. So this GI stuff is actually pretty important.

I’ve been looking for a Mai Tai rum blend that omits Plantation products, and tried to include rums from various countries. Over and over I’ve tried to approach the unique and complex flavor from the Ultimate Mai Tai blend, and tried to match the 50% ABV which that blend is famous for. None of them approached the taste I was looking for. After a year of experimentation, I’ve decided this blend is good enough to be let out to the world. And it turns out it is an entirely Jamaican blend.

Ultimate Mai Tai Jamaican Rum Blend
2 parts Appleton 12 Rare Casks (43% ABV)
2 parts Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaica Rum (57% ABV)
1 part Worthy Park 109 (54.5% ABV)

The Appleton 12 and Smith & Cross are carryovers from the Ultimate Mai Tai blend, and are widely used in the industry. The blended aged rum from Appleton tempers some of Smith & Cross’ infamous funky pot still flavors. Just the two of them together make a fabulous Mai Tai. In fact they make up the rum in the excellent Mai Tai at San Jose’s Dr. Funk Rum House and tiki bar, one of our Top 5 Mai Tais.

The inclusion of Worthy Park 109 is to add some Demerara Rum-style flavor notes, such as burnt sugar. The caramel coloring also adds to the mouthfeel of the rum blend. I found Worthy Park 109 to be similar to some circa 1950s Myers’s Planters Punch rum that I was fortunate to try. The light funk provided by 109 keeps that flavor in the rum blend, and the high ABV allows us to keep the overall blend just above 50%.

Unfortunately, the 2-2-1 ratio does not make for easy on-the-spot jigger measurements for a Mai Tai that features 2 oz / 60 ml of rum. So, we suggest you batch up a bit to give this blend a try in a Mai Tai. It compares quite favorably to the Ultimate Mai Tai blend in side-by-side comparisons.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.