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New Site Feature: Top 5 Mai Tais
We’ve added a new page with our current list of best Mai Tais. These are Mai Tais made without any rum or ingredient substitutions (which could yield a better Mai Tai of course). If you just walk in and order the house Mai Tai, these are the best.
- Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29
- Rumba
- House without a Key, Halekulani Hotel
- Lono
- Hale Pele
The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai: Top 5 Mai Tais
Voyager’s Mainbrace
Mai Tai in Pop Culture: “Mai Tai” by Les Baxter
This is track number 6 (closing Side A) from Les Baxter’s 1963 album Soul of the Drums. This albums was one of Baxter’s last in the exotica genre and is pretty good overall.
Unfortunately, “Mai Tai” is maybe the least exotic song on the album, and was described by Ambient Exotica (reprinted in The Les Baxter Companion, 2018) as a “stupefying silkened string panorama.” Since this album was Baxter’s first on Reprise it also means that none of its tracks made it onto the otherwise excellent Capitol Records compilations from the 1990s.