Category: Rum

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17 Year Wray & Nephew Rum Copy

This rum recipe comes from Greg Easter and the book Advanced Mixology: A New Apporach. Easter’s family knew Trader Vic Bergerson personally and Easter claims to have sampled a bottle of the famed original Mai Tai rum, albeit a “doctored” version. Easter says that Vic would add a small amount of “Nastoyka,” an infused liqueur, to his rum bottles to give them a special flavor. Easter includes a Mai Tai recipe using this rum that he claims was close to the original.

Producing some Nastoyka for the rum blend always felt like a PITA to me, so we thank Brenda Gadow for being a mensch and doing the work to infuse rum with raisins, hibiscus, vanilla tea, and star anise. And then to combine that Nastroyka with five rums and one liqueur.

The Wray Copy is a very flavorful rum when sampled neat, quite reminiscent of the long finish and dark fruit flavors of Appleton 17 Legend (itself an attempt to recreate the original Wray & Nephew rum). At about 50% ABV, it is boozier than the original Wray but very close to Legend.

We tried this rum in our standard Mai Tai recipe, using 1 oz of lime juice ¼ oz of Demerara Syrup. To emulate the Giffard orgeat Easter calls for we used a split of Latitude 29 and Liber Orgeat. It wasn’t a bad Mai Tai but certainly felt too sweet, and the rum definitely got lost in the blend.

There’s a Mai Tai recipe in the book that varies from the standard proportions so we tried that. This goes heavier on the orange liqueur, less on lime, and no sugar besides the orgeat. This version was considerably better, and it turned out to be quite a nice Mai Tai. Not like the incredible ones made with Legend 17, but quite formidable nonetheless.

For an additional perspective, check out the Mixing Up Tiki video: Mai Tai Showdown Featuring Appleton Estate 17, Wray & Nephew 17 Clone, and Denizen Merchant Reserve

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Rum Sub Mai Tai at Rhumbar at The Mirage

Rhumbar Ultra Lounge is a cocktail bar and patio on the southern side of The Mirage. We’d been walking for a while and decided to relax with a drink. Our bartender Ezequiel was super friendly and since it was kind of slow I decided to ask for some rum substitutions from their normal “Mai Tai Or Die” cocktail. I asked for Appleton 12 and Smith & Cross, a couple of fine rums from their well-stocked back bar of rum selections. Ezequiel encouraged me to also have some Clement Blanc in the mix and I trusted him with the recommendation. The Mai Tai here does use a little pineapple juice but it is not overly heavy and adds a nice tough of sweetness to the cocktail.

My Rum Sub Mai Tai was really great, better than the very good standard Rhumbar Mai Tai we had here on our last visit. The blend of flavors was truly balanced and the orgeat and pineapple did work well together to add sweetness to the cocktail. The skull mug is pretty cool, too.

The retro theme of Rhumbar is really nice, including heavy use of breeze blocks on the patio. Mrs. Mai Tai’s Save the Bees cocktail with bourbon and honey was also very good. I’m sure the Ultra Lounge vibe is different in the later evening on a weekend, but for Saturday afternoon it was totally chill with a relaxed vibe and friendly staff.

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Vatos Who Tiki at Kon-Tiki

The crew from the Los Angeles-based lifestyle brand Vatos Who Tiki were up in the Bay Area last weekend and did a takeover at Oakland’s Kon-Tiki after Rum Fest. Having the Kon-Tiki’s legendary cheeseburger after drinking rum all day seemed like a no-brainer. The takeover included some great tunes from DJ Oran and El Nova and a special cocktail menu.

DJ El Nova

I very much enjoyed the Oaxacan in Jamaica, the Vatos’ Mai Tai blend that includes Oaxacan and Jamican rums. I’ve loved all the Oaxacan rums I’ve tried so this one was a great combo especially when paired with my cheeseburger.

Very nice to talk to El Nova in person after years of online discussions. The Vatos Who Tiki merch lineup for this event was full of great items including glasses and stickers – and you can buy shirts in their online Etsy store. Check it out.

We great to see Doc Parks in the house and to visit with Christ from Kon-Tiki.

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SF Rum Fest Presentation: The Mai Tai in Hawai’i

Today was an add-on experience connected to the San Francisco Rum Festival and Congress held at Trader Vic’s Emeryville. Rum Education for a Cause was a fundraiser for Maui and included three sessions.

Mai Tai: The Official (Unofficial) Cocktail of Hawai’i

“The Mai Tai has been coined the “national drink of Hawaii” and is often referred to as the “king of tiki drinks” according to Dine with Drinks. Join our panelists to learn more about the history of this iconic cocktail in Hawai’i and from today’s Hawaiian rum producers who are advancing drink’s cornerstone ingredient into the 21st century.”

My portion included a presentation about the history of the Mai Tai in Hawai’i including how the cocktail continues to evolve and feature the fine rums from local rum producers Kuleana Rum Works and Kō Hana Distillers. Steve Jefferson from Kuleana and Kyle Reutner from Kō Hana discussed their rums and included more details about how sugar cane came to Hawai’i and how it is used today.

Download the Presentation (PDF)

Mai Tai from Kuleana at the Rum Education for a Cause event
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SF Rum Fest 2023

Another successful San Francisco Rum Festival and Congress is in the books. We had a great time at the Hibernia in downtown SF for this year’s event. Everything seemed just about the same as last year in terms of attendance and rum sponsors. So nice to meet many rum reps and to taste some new rums and expressions.

Welcome Mai Tai from Kuleana Rum Works

Having been doing the rum thing for several years now, I try to stick to things I haven’t tried before. So when I went to the El Dorado/Diamond table I unbelievably didn’t ask for a pour of cask strength Port Mourant but Diamond’s new Coconut rum. And I liked it! The Diamond line is a lower-priced product line and everything I’ve tried has been really great, including their two 151 expressions.

Barbancourt from Haiti has an interesting 110 proof white rum expression that I found interesting and had some bold and complex flavors. Same was true for the Monymusks’s forthcoming Overproof rum. This Jamaica rum is issued at 126 proof, but it quite a bit different from Wray/Rum Fire. Definitely a little lighter including Column-still distillate and a more subdued fruit-forward flavor. Worth checking out.

There were several good seminars. I really enjoyed the session from Johann Jobello covering the line of Haitian Clairins from La Maison & Velier. Clairins are wonderful and tasting these expressions side by side shows how diverse they can be – even when they’re just coming from the same country. The session from Monymusk led by blender Robert Gordon and supported by Adrienne Stoner was also quite informative. Based on rums coming from the Long Pond and Clarendon distilleries, Monymusk is relaunching their brand in the U.S. and seems poised for wider availability.

A session about estate-grown rums featured Zan Kong from Worthy Park and was paired with Steve Jefferson and Kyle Reutner from Hawaiian distilleries Kuleana and Kō Hana respectively. This was a little looser in style and more for a Q&A format with some cogent and respectful questions from the audience. Three of my favorite rums companies.

Robert Gordon from Monymusk
Mitch Wilson from Black Tot Rum
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Kō Hana Distillery on O’ahu

One of the highlights of the Tiki in Waikiki weekend event was a tour of the Kō Hana rum distillery in Waipahu. We took comfortable buses our about an hour out of Waikiki and were greeted by the friendly folks from Kō Hana.

The tour includes four components, with about ten minutes in each spot. Our group started with the distilling area with the pot and column stills, where we learned about how they take the wash and turn it into fine Hawaiian rum. Our next stop was the aging room where we saw that some of Kō Hana’s expressions are aged in a variety of barrels including a few made with native Hawaiian wood. There’s a lot more capacity in that aging room, where I hope we’ll get even longer aged expressions of Kō Hana rum in the future.

We also learned about the sugar cane and the dozens of varietals that Kō Hana is using. These varietals are on the grounds of the distillery for reference, but the farms are on the north end of O’ahu. At each stop the experts in each field were available for detailed questions about Kō Hana’s production process. A breezy tour for rum newbies and super cool for the rum nerds to dig into the details.

The last stop was the tasting room where we got to sample three Kō Hana expressions: the unaged Kea, the aged Koho, and the Kokoleka which is made with Kō Hana rum along with pure cacao and raw honey. This liqueur is bottled at 30% ABV and Mrs. Mai Tai was such a big fan that we walked home with a bottle. There’s also samples of Kō Hana’s fine bottled cocktails and some other branded items available for purchase.

Kō Hana is becoming one of my favorite rums thanks to the myriad excellent cocktails I’ve been having lately that are made with this fine spirit. I honestly don’t love their unique square bottles but they’re quite distinctive on the shelf and traveled well in our suitcase.

Big thanks to the team Kō Hana who were super informative and also provided us with a great deal of hospitality during our visit. Mahalo, team.

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House without a Key at Halekulani Hotel Waikiki

We wanted to revisit House without a Key, having been able to score walk-up seats the pool bar on our last trip but wanting to sit closer to the performances that start at 5:00. Our reservation was for 5:30 and we saw that “drinks only” guests were seated up front in the sun and many used the provided umbrellas to shade themselves. When we were seated for dinner, we opted to sit in the shade under covering.

The performers sing a variety of Hawaiian songs and at 6:00 a former Miss Hawaii comes out to dance. This is a very nice and relaxing locale and once you’re in shade a little is quite pleasant, so consider a slightly later reservation.

I ordered the Mai Tai, made to a 50s style Hawaiian Mai Tai spec (no pineapple) but with a dark rum float. I normally love these but found it to be flat this visit, and they’re probably still not using Lemon Hart 151 for the float, a rum that I think is essentially for adding a lot of flavor. It most definitely not Bacardi 151 per the menu, since Bacardi stopped making that years ago and for sure the float had more of a smoky flavor (I’m guessing it was Myers’s). We enjoyed the rest of our dinner and desert with the Halekulani’s famous coconut cake.