Category: Mai Tai

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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.

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New Site Feature: Orgeat

Orgeat is one of the cornerstone ingredients in a Mai Tai, so we’ve added a page that talks about what it is, how it’s used in a Mai Tai, how to make your own, or the best brands to purchase.

View the page: Orgeat

BG Reynolds Orgeat and Latitude 29 Formula Orgeat
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New Site Feature: Tiki Travels – San Francisco Bay Area

We’ve added a new page to the Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai website: Tiki Travels – San Francisco Bay Area.

Home to the largest concentration of tiki bars anywhere in the world, our Tiki Travels page covers all 20 tiki bars in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have location info, touring tips, and photos. We also rate these destinations on a number of categories, so you can choose which ones to prioritize on your visits to the area.

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Tiki Travels – San Francisco Bay Area

Kevin Crossman at Trader Vic's
Having a Mai Tai at Trader Vic’s in Emeryville
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Mai Tai in Pop Culture: “Mai Tai Break” by L’Exotighost

We discovered a new exotica band from Spain called L’Exotighost who put out an EP last year called La Ola Oculta. There are a number of interesting songs here, including “Cha Cha Challoween” that includes the classic theme from the movie Halloween.

Here’s a list of the band members: Theremin & Güiro (Javier Díez Ena), Drums & congas (Ricardo Moreno), Marimba (María Arranz Fernández y Vera Garrido), Bass Ukulele (Juan Pérez Marina) Audio manipularion of birds and theremin sound (Jav Álvarez). 

The La Ola Oculta EP is available in a number of services including the music streaming services and also iTunes.

The band put together an entertaining video for their single, “Mai Tai Break.” This song has the Theremin as the lead instrument, and it’s quite effective on this track. We’ll also note that they’re being served a traditional 1944 Mai Tai made with Appleton Rum, so somebody really knows what they’re doing.

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New Site Feature: Tiki Travels – Honolulu

We’ve added a new page to the Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai website: Tiki Travels – Honolulu.

Most of our Tiki Travels pages will be exclusively focusing on Tiki Bars. However, since Hawaii is also a great Mai Tai destination, many of the places we visited weren’t tiki at all. Nonetheless we had some great Mai Tais, including our favorite on Waikiki at the Halekulani Hotel.

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Tiki Travels – Honolulu