Category: Rum

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The Beachcomber is a Fab Tiki Bar in London

Mrs. Mai Tai and I landed in London after a red eye from California and walked like zombies over to Queensway to The Beachcomber for dinner. We did the same thing on our visit last year, with similar results. Totally chill vibe early in the evening, with some great Thai food and better cocktails.

The food here comes from Horapha which is a Thai restaurant on the street level next door. We really liked our dinner and it’s even better in a basement tiki bar. The decor inside Beachcomber isn’t totally high tiki but for London is not bad at all and the escapist nature of the venue is really nice.

Cocktails are pretty good here. I was really impressed by the off-menu Mai Tai that has rich flavors of Rhum Agricole, the specialty of the Beachcomber, but is fantastically done and has balanced sweetness. My only gripe was that it seems a little small! Meanwhile, Mrs. Mai Tai’s Nocholada has coconut, chocolate, and hazelnut flavors that’s a really amazing desert cocktail.

The Refresher cocktail includes peach liqueur, Yellow Chartreuse, elderflower cordial, and other flavors. As the customer you can choose the spirit to use, including gin, vodka, or agave spirits. I chose Copalli white rum for Mrs. Mai Tai while I had the Clement Blanc Rhum Agricole for mine. You definitely can taste the different, though we both felt the peach was a little too forward in the balance. Nonetheless, the name is certainly that – very refreshing.

The Refresher(s)

Our service was prompt and friendly, and there’s a nice selection of spirts of the back bar that aren’t on the menu, so if you’re a Rhum fan definitely check out the selection before ordering. Music on our visit was 1970s including multiple Fleetwood Mac and Jim Croce songs. Maybe not the best music for a tiki bar, but I know that traditional exotica is tough in this market. At least it was vintage and mellow leaning, which added to the relaxing feelings inside.

The Beachcomber can be clubby later in the evening and on the weekends (like all of London’s tiki/tropical bars) but we really enjoyed the vibe in the early evening.

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Mai Tai Monday: Hamilton Breezeway Blend Rum

Whenever I get a new bottle of rum, I always make a Mai Tai with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s expensive or cheap, or even if the rum isn’t really intended to be used for that cocktail. Sometimes you find things out about the rum when you taste in the Mai Tai format, along with the lime and sweeteners that serve to provide a foundation for the cocktail.

Such was the case with the new Hamilton Breezeway Blend, named in honor of Spike Marble’s Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour channel on YouTube. Ed Hamilton put together this blend and it is similar to rums such as Probitas which blend a lighter style rum along with a funky rum from Jamaica. In this case, the base of the Breezeway Blend is Hamilton White Stache, an 87 proof white rum with distillate mostly from Trinidad but also some from Guyana and the Dominican Republic. That’s combined with a smaller proportion of Hamilton Pot Still Blonde from Jamaica, which is based on a couple Worthy Park distillates that are aged 1-2 years in New York. Blonde has a ton of flavor even at 45% ABV is my favorite Hamilton rum expression.

The Breezeway Blend is being positioned rightly so as a flavorful Daiquiri rum, where light leaning rum is expected. The Mai Tai traditionally wants to use heavier and bolder rums, but I’ll be damned if the 85 proof Breezeway Blend doesn’t make for a really fine Mai Tai. This leans lighter, of course, but there’s plenty of funky Jamaican flavor and sometimes you want something that’s just a little easier to drink.

In many ways, this reminds me of what Trader Vic did when he brought the Mai Tai to Hawai’i. That original Hawaiian Mai Tai wasn’t made with long aged Jamaica rum, but used inexpensive dark Jamaican rums such as Myers’s and combined it with a light Puerto Rican so that it would be easier for tourists to drink.

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Bali Hai Sells 3 Millionth Mai Tai (with Recipe)

Congrats to San Diego’s Bali Hai Restaurant, a longtime institution located on scenic Shelter Island. The venue’s infamous Mai Tai is known to be extraordinarily potent, advertised as not being made with any juice. It’s basically rum in a glass with little splashes of traditional Mai Tai ingredients.

The 3 millionth Mai Tai was recently sold at Bali Hai, which has a ticker inside the restaurant showing how many they’ve sold. Quite a milestone for such a noteworthy entrant in the lore of the Mai Tai.

People often ask how this is made, so we present the recipe that tastes like the real thing.

Bali Hai Mai Tai
½ oz Sweet and Sour Mix (or ¼ oz Lemon Juice and ¼ oz Simple Syrup)
¼ oz Orgeat
¼ oz Triple Sec
2½ oz Cruzan Light Rum
2½ oz Coruba Dark Jamaican Rum
Shake with ice

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Maximum Aloha Cocktail and Rum at Wilfred’s Lounge

Had a great time at Wilfred’s Lounge in downtown Napa on Saturday for dinner and drinks. We love the dishes here and our coconut shrimp were so huge and delectable. Definitely the best coconut shrimp we’ve had in a long time. The Fried Rice portion is huge and tastes great especially when you add a protein like chicken. Our service was first class all the way.

Maximum Aloha

Cocktails remain high quality here, including a very good Mai Tai that’s not too sweet and rich with flavor. They use Jamaican and Martinique rums, which to me lean a little too far in the grassy agricole direction. Still, it’s a winner. Less great for me was the Mai Tai inspired Tai One On, a stirred cocktail that had rum but also amaretto. There was something about the flavor that I didn’t like.

Everyone loved the Maximum Aloha, of which several rounds were ordered. This fruity cocktail remains stellar thanks to a balance of flavors that isn’t too sweet and features an incredible banana coconut cream topping. You can also order a neat pour of the Maximum Aloha rum, which is Tanduay and Rum Fire that has infused strawberries. The rum isn’t too sweet but you sure get that great strawberry color. It was a treat to have this rum neat.

The upstairs patio has some more permanent seating and also includes a fire pit and small Moai. Great views, as always.

Maximum Aloha Rum
Mai Tai
Tai One On
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2010 era Mount Gay Extra Old

Found this at an independent liquor store about a mile from my house. I’m not sure why I never stopped in but this beauty from 2010-2015 was there for just $41. The character of this Mount Gay Extra Old blend leans a little heavier and has more traditional oak barrel flavores than the current XO expression that leans a bit fruitier. Chocolate notes are stronger in the older blend, too. Then as now, this is issued at 43% ABV.

I was lucky to find a 2000s era Extra Old in another local store a few years back, so I now have four generations of XO expressions, though my 2015-2019 era bottle is almost gone. These are all very flavorful Barbadian rums that for me a pretty easy to sip at this ABV level and they’re missing the “over oaked” taste you sometimes get with aged rums. These are great on those nights when I want to taste the rum but don’t want to deal with cask strength ABV.

The latest XO expression is commonly seen over $60 which factors as a premium for the well-known Mount Gay brand but which also means that savvy shoppers can find better values by looking at brands such as Doorly’s, Old Brigand, and Real McCoy (all produced by Foursquare on Barbados). Nonetheless, the XO has remained a good option for those looking for widely available and approachable sipping rums from Barbados.

Comparison Chart

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Smuggler’s Cove Birthday Rum and Fun

After drinks at Last Rites we took a chance by going to Smuggler’s Cove, where lines to enter aren’t uncommon especially on the weekends. Thankfully, we got right in and found some comfy seats upstairs in the Hut. This is definitely the best place at the Cove for conversation, made all the better by running into our mutual friends David and Amy.

As a birthday treat, I ordered an old Samaroli rum from Jamaica. Distilled in ’92, making this almost nearly as old as I am. This was some amazing rum, so full of flavor as you’d expect from a 52% ABV rum aged for 25 years. I’m a member of the Rumbustion Society at the Cove and though I’m not anywhere near the 2000+ rums some folks have tried if I’m here I try to spoil myself with something great. I ended up killing this limited edition bottle, which means it shall never return.

As we exited Smuggler’s Cove we saw that there was quite a long line to get in. Our easy entry was quite a gift indeed.

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Rum Curious Happy Hour at Kon-Tiki

Fun times on Monday with a rum tasting happy hour at The Kon-Tiki in Oakland, hosted by Bryan Inman as part of his Rum Curious Club event series. The rums available for tasting were from Hawai’i’s Kō Hana and Haiti’s Rhum Barbancourt.

This session was a little different than the typical rum tasting at Kon-Tiki where a rum rep usually sets up and is there for maybe a couple hours. For this one the tasting was limited to one hour as were the special $7 cocktails made with the sponsored rums. As such, it was quite the feeding frenzy to get in to taste the rums. I’m not sure this is a better format, but there’s no doubt there was a certain energy in the room, and the Kon-Tiki bar team certainly did a great job keeping up with cocktail orders.

I’ve tried the entire Kō Hana lineup before so I didn’t partake in the rum tasting, but I really loved the Kon-Tiki’s take on the Royal Hawaiian Cocktail made with Kō Hana rum, orgeat, pineapple, and citrus. It was absolutely delightful, featuring the flavorful sugar cane rum made on O’ahu very much in balance with the pineapple.

As for Rhum Barbancourt, I was interested in Haitian Proof, an unaged expression at 110 proof. This was noticeably different than the aged Barbancourt releases which to me don’t have that “sugar cane distillate” taste. Haitian Proof on the other hand definitely has that flavor that you get from other Haitian rums and clairins. Very interesting and retailing for around $30 plus or minus.

Bryan Inman