Category: History

Posted on

Mai Tai Seminar at The Fink in Napa

Get your tickets now for a special Mai Tai seminar and cocktail tasting at Napa’s leading cocktail bar, The Fink. The event starts at 2:30 pm on Sunday, May 3 and includes a seminar about the Mai Tai plus three variations on the cocktail including the Ultimate Mai Tai.

You can look forward to an informative and humorous presentation describing the hunt for the ultimate Mai Tai. You’ll enjoy delicious variations on this classic cocktail while discovering newly uncovered historical details, best and worst Mai Tais, and how to get the perfect Mai Tai at your local watering hole. Advice and lessons for the home bartender will be provided, plus plenty of eye candy and Q&A.

The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai at The Fink, May 3, 2:30 pm

Update: the event is now sold out. Thank you Napa!

Posted on

San Francisco Icon Tiki Bob at Honey Honey

Look who we found on the way to Zombie Village, the original Tiki Bob at the corner of Post and Taylor. He looks freshly painted and the current building occupant Honey Honey recently embraced Bob’s color scheme by changing from green to brown.

This was the original home of Tiki Bob’s, opened in 1955 when a disgruntled Trader Vic’s bartender opened his own place a block away from his former boss. This location closed in 1983. A second Tiki Bob’s location opened in the building that currently houses Pagan Idol during the 1960s.

Posted on

Trader Vic Footage from “Donn of Tiki” Documentary

Trader Vic’s Emeryville hosted a special showing of a deleted scene from the acclaimed The Donn of Tiki documentary, highlighting archival footage of Trader Vic plus commentary about Vic from luminaries and experts. The showing followed a screening of The Donn of Tiki film nearby, plus the Mai Tai Lounge being open on a Tuesday as part of the Hinky Dinks Speakeasy that Vic’s has been running for a couple months.

Having seen the film before, we skipped the showing of the film and spent time in the lounge (we did buy tickets for the film, though). We enjoyed our past visit to the Hinky Dinks Speakeasy, previously held in the intimate Lanyu Room. This week the Tuesday speakeasy was hosted in the larger Mai Tai Lounge space, featuring a cocktail menu of Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s favorites plus some small bites. Music as always was pitch perfect 1940s era music from DJ Speakeasy Ray, who even showed us some rare vintage relics in his collection.

I really enjoyed the Three Dots & a Dash that used Kuleana Hawaiian Rum Agricole in place of the Martinique rhum that is normally used and I also liked the Shark’s Tooth that was light and refreshing, though Mrs. Mai Tai wasn’t a fan. I appreciated the inclusion of the Mai Tai on this special menu (reminder to you know who about who invented it), but we went with the Scorpion instead. The Scorpion can sometimes be too tart, but it was in balance on this visit.

Scorpion

As the filmgoers returned from the movie, the bar filled with people trying to get one final cocktail and then we were ushered into the Lanyu Room to watch the ten-minute deleted scene. If you’ve seen The Donn of Tiki film, you wouldn’t be surprised that the discussion of Trader Vic featured notables such as Eve Bergeron, Marie King, and Tim Glazner. There was also some archival footage of an elderly Trader Vic reminiscing about his career. This was such a treat, informative and entertaining.

We also spoke with Donn of Tiki director Max Well about plans for the VOD home video and Blu-Ray release of this incredible documentary, to be released very soon.

Posted on

Bamboo & Bitters Makes the Ultimate Mai Tai

The newish YouTube channel Bamboo & Bitters welcomed me to The Fo’c’sle, the home bar and lounge of Pete and Andrea who serve as the hosts and producers of the channel. The channel covers a wide variety of tiki-related topics including cocktails, events, and spirits.

For the latest episode dropping today, I was the guest and made an Ultimate Mai Tai with Pete. We discussed the background on my version of Vic’s most famous cocktail and Mai Tais in general. Pete’s interest and enthusiasm is infectious and we had a blast hanging out in their fun basement lounge.

Check out Bamboo & Bitters on YouTube.

Posted on

Recipe: The Space Needle

This vintage recipe recently popped up on the Make and Drink YouTube channel, where Derek described the vague history of this drink. It’s obviously a Mai Tai variant, notably substituting lemon juice for lime, but strangely Trader Vic did not take credit for the recipe in his books where the recipe was listed. Perhaps a crew member at the Seattle Trader Vic’s location did the riffing on the Trader’s behalf.

Space Needle by Trader Vic (?)
1½ oz Lemon Juice
¾ oz Orgeat
1 oz Orange Curacao
1½ oz Light Rum
1½ oz Dark Jamaican Rum
Flash blend with 1 cup of shaved ice, add to glass with additional shaved/crushed ice. Mint garnish optional.

I used a 50/50 blend of Clement Creole Shrubb and Grand Marnier for the orange curaçao.

This drink is not dissimilar to the original Hawaiian Mai Tai that Trader Vic introduced to Hawaii in 1953, including a blend of a light rum and a dark Jamaican rum. I used Coruba, as did Derek, though back in the 1960s the typical dark Jamaican rums were a bit higher in ABV. Nonetheless, the drink is plenty boozy with 3 oz of rum plus a full ounce of orange curaçao.

Indeed that ratio of orange curaçao is what makes this kind of a different drink than simply a Mai Tai with lemon juice. The overall character is sweeter and a bit more floral, though I felt it was richer than Menehune Juice, a Mai Tai variant made just with light Puerto Rican rum. In the case of the Menehune Juice it’s quite floral as the rum doesn’t add a lot of flavor, whereas with the Space Needle there are richer ingredients to taste and a heavier overall mouthfeel.

Derek said he thought this would be better with a little less orange curaçao, resulting in a drink that’s closer to a Mai Tai spec and better balanced. I disagree and totally loved the richness from the sweet orange liqueur.

The Space Needle is different from a Mai Tai and it’s great. I regret not making this sooner.

Posted on

Inuhele 2026 Seminar Slides

(Nearly) Everything You Know about Rum in a Mai Tai is Wrong

While the Mai Tai was born with a long-aged pot-still Jamaica rum, over decades the Trader used rums from various islands and styles to produce Mai Tais for different purposes. Learn how the rums and recipe for the Mai Tai evolved over the years and how changing up the rum can make your Mai Tai more palatable for your guests.

Think you know everything about rum in a Mai Tai? Prepare to have your assumptions challenged.

View the Slides

The (De)Evolution of the Hawaiian Mai Tai

Everyone is familiar with the iconic Hawaiian Mai Tai that features pineapple juice and a dark rum float. This popular variant of the Mai Tai is quite different from the original 1944 Mai Tai created at Trader Vic’s.

So, when did the Mai Tai in Hawaii become the “Hawaiian Mai Tai” we know today? It is actually far later than the myths you might have heard. Learn more about this iconic cocktail and how it evolved over the years based on contemporaneous reports and published recipes.

View the Slides

 

Posted on

Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Investigative Report

Over the holidays I received several credible reports that Trader Vic’s Emeryville was making Mai Tais using Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Concentrate rather than from scratch ingredients.

For those not familiar, Concentrate is a product developed by Trader Vic’s several decades ago to ease cocktail production by replacing the orgeat, orange curaçao, and rock candy syrup with ¾ oz of the Concentrate plus lime juice and rum. Note that this is different from the “Mai Tai Mix” that’s available to consumers at retail. In the past, when a cocktail menu listed a “Trader Vic’s Mai Tai” and referenced “modified to perfection” in the description that meant it was made with the Mai Tai Concentrate.

Original Mai Tai, January 2026

The widespread use of Concentrate in the Mai Tai at Trader Vic’s Emeryville ended years ago, and the description for “The Original Mai Tai” specifically mentions orgeat, orange curaçao, and rock candy syrup. Concentrate is still used for Mai Tai variants such as the Tropical Tais, and sometimes for large events, but even on Mai Tai Day when I ordered an Original Mai Tai they did make it from scratch. So, it was quite a shock to hear Vic’s was using Concentrate in the standard Mai Tai.

During my visit on Sunday I ordered a Mai Tai and it didn’t taste like it used the Concentrate. Moreover, I popped over to the bar and the first thing I saw was longtime bartender Saul measuring out ingredients for a dozen Mai Tais and he was not using the concentrate. In speaking with Saul, he also confirmed they don’t use it for the Original Mai Tai.

I am traveling to Georgia next week for Inuhele and will continue the investigation at the Trader Vic’s Atlanta location.