Category: Travel

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The Fink Is Napa’s Can Do Cocktail Lounge

We took a trek up to Napa to view the Lighted Art Festival, with displays across the charming downtown. We also made sure to visit our favorite cocktail joint and had a couple rounds with local friends. While we’ve patronized The Fink several times, during this visit we really got to see how they handled a contrasting set of cocktails, all of which were made with the high standards they’re known for.

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way; yes, The Fink’s OG Mai Tai is still excellent and the best one I’ve had all year. We even suggested this to our friend who’d only ever had island Mai Tais and she was completely blown away by the nutty flavors from The Fink’s house-made orgeat. Also excellent was the tiki cult favorite Reverb Crash that features zesty white grapefruit, demonstrating once again that tropical drinks are a strength here.

We also saw that The Fink does well with other cocktail styles including an off menu Gin Daisy that was a special order from our friend. The Candy Apple Sour, New York Sour, and Mocha Milk Punch were all perfectly balanced and highlighted diverse flavors. The Fink really proved that they can do it all.

Candy Apple Sour and Mocha Milk Punch
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Nightcaps at Rosetta Brings Mardi Gras Menu to Downtown Livermore

Our favorite Livermore cocktail spot has a New Orleans inspired menu to celebrate Mardi Gras, available now through February 13. Nightcaps at Rosetta is the evening persona of Rosetta Roasting and trades coffee for a cocktail focus.

The NOLA menu is pretty vast with numerous favorites such as the Sazerac, Bourbon Street Julep, and Voodoo Grog. There are also some food options including king cake that compliments Rosetta’s always stellar cake lineup. We skipped the alligator flatbread and went with the beignets that are served either with chocolate or a raspberry cream dipping sauce and these were really great.

Hurricane

On the cocktail side I went with the Hurricane which leans a little more juicy and orange-forward than on the passionfruit side, with a good amount of rum but not so much that it’ll kill you. I found it to be delightfully balanced with plenty of flavor, with a lighter and less syrupy body. Mrs. Mai Tai had the Marie Laveau which is somewhat like an Espresso Martini but with bolder coffee flavors that’ll really appeal to those who love a bold, dark roast.

Marie Laveau

Be sure to check out the Mardi Gras menu while you can, and be prepared for a Valentine’s Day menu at Nightcaps for the 14th.

Beignets and Masks
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Frozen Delights with the Peachtree Punch and Grasshopper at Trader Vic’s Atlanta

Two highlights from our visits to Trader Vic’s Atlanta were a couple of frozen drinks that are designed for very easy drinking.

The Peachtree Punch is the signature cocktail for this location, described as including light rum, peaches, oranges, and “a soft southern whisper of coconuts”. Using peaches, Georgia’s state fruit, makes a lot of sense and the flavor profile was mild and not overpowering, a plus for me. I enjoyed the punch and for me was a very good change of pace from the boozy tiki drinks I’m usually imbibing.

Peachtree Punch

Meanwhile, Mrs. Mai Tai fell in love with Trader Vic’s Grasshopper, featuring crème de cacao, crème de menthe, and vanilla ice cream ordering it both nights were there. As desert cocktails go, this creamy blend was excellent and a true palette cleanser. Highly recommended.

Grasshopper

The Sea Dreams and Koana Puffer cocktails were also very good, comparable to other Vic’s locations. We’ll cover the Mai Tai in a separate post.

Sea Dreams and Koana Puffer
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Trader Vic’s Atlanta

A highlight of our Inuhele weekend was a visit to the last restaurant that opened during Trader Vic’s lifetime. Located in the basement of the Hilton hotel, Trader Vic’s Atlanta will be celebrating its 50th anniversary later this year and significant portions of the venue haven’t been touched since opening. The eye candy starts before you enter with large Barney West tikis behind the elevators, plus a large foyer that leads to the Mai Tai Bar and then to three distinct dining areas.

We had dinner two nights here and found the food to be comparable to other Vic’s locations, except that the portions were noticeably larger. The fried rice, wonton soup, and crab rangoon were delicious, and they still offer whipped peanut butter spread with crackers as an included appetizer. Our service was friendly and prompt both nights.

During our Inuhele weekend visits the foyer was taken over with a large selection of Trader Vic’s merchandise, with Eve Bergeron present to help with the sales and to talk to fans of the chain founded by her grandfather. Trader Vic’s Atlanta also sells their own branded merch, available throughout the year.

Toward the back of the venue there’s a patio or sorts that serves as a smoking section. There’s a large Barney West Moai facing the street and bright Trader Vic’s signage back there as well. The venue has many pieces of original art and decor, historical displays, and signature Chinese Ovens, making this a true time-machine for those looking for a vintage experience.

We had a lot of fun talking tiki and Trader Vic’s with Jim and Mick, too. Since Mick is a local he pointed out several features and history of the venue.

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Great Experience at The S.O.S. Tiki Bar

We’re in Georgia for the Inuhele weekender and had some time on Wednesday to Lyft over to Decatur to check out the supposedly “world famous” S.O.S. Tiki Bar. We arrived around 9:00 and found the place to be mostly full but we were happy with seats at the bar. The retro-leaning music and crowd noise were fairly loud, so you could only talk at the bar to person next to you or the bartender but not to someone a couple seats away.

The cocktail menu has a lot of options but I went with the Mai Tai to start, surprised and pleased to see this is served flaming. This is good Mai Tai that includes a little Angostura Bitters, very approachable for someone new to tiki. I also had the Frozen Painkilla that was really great in that format, though I omitted the additional shot of rum.

Mrs. Mai Tai picked Dr. J’s Monkey Disco that includes some bubby in just the right proportion to combine with fruit flavors, amaro, and rum. Her second drink was the Superfast Jellyfish, a daiquiri style cocktail with a huge foamy head. Both of these were good cocktails that indicate modern sensibilities are at play with the bar program.

By far the best drink we had was Caribbean Queen, a rich cocktail featuring rums from Jamaican and Barbados, allspice, grapefruit, and just the right amount of guava. One of the best new tiki cocktails I’ve had in a long time.

All our drinks were elaborately garnished. The bartender at our station was definitely not a veteran and so the garnishing process did take some time and the lead bartender provided a little help flaming the Mai Tai, but our drinks tasted great which was the most important part. She seemed enthused about the genre, referencing nearby books Easy Tiki, Smuggler’s Cove, and Beachbum Berry Remixed. The team also did well making an off-menu Kingston Negroni for my neighbor at the bar.

S.O.S. is in a nice neighborhood with some other restaurants and bars, including Victory Sandwich which shares the building and kitchen. We didn’t try any of the bites at S.O.S. but have heard good things from others. The decor and vibe were really nice here, plus great service and fab cocktails.

Mai Tai, Dr. J’s Monkey Disco, Superfast Jellyfish, Caribbean Queen, Frozen Painkilla
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Mai Tai Seminars at Inuhele: Atlanta’s Tiki Weekend

There are still tickets available for Inuhele: Atlanta’s tiki weekend, January 23-25.

This will be our first trip to Inuhele and I’ll be presenting two Mai Tai seminars, updated and refreshed for 2026! We’re excited to present to a Southeast audience, and having a Trader Vic’s in town is a huge plus.

Are you attending Inuhele? Leave a note and let’s be sure to meet up.

If you’re local, leave any touring tips in the comments.

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Three Miracle Pop-Ups in Three Days

The Miracle Christmas cocktail pop-up franchise has been active for more than a decade and seems to expand locations each year. Founded by Greg Boehm, there are Miracle locations across the globe and a companion pop-up focusing on tiki drinks also running under the Sippin’ Santa brand. The cocktail offerings at Miracle are a little more varied and tend to work better across the different venues hosting the pop-up.

Sunday afternoon we went to Brewster’s in Petaluma, a large beer garden style venue. I went with an old favorite, “Yippee Ki Yay Mother F****r!”, the cocktail with several rums with ube and coconut orgeat. This isn’t too sweet, thanks to acid-adjusted pineapple juice. Brewster’s does pretty good with this, and their super friendly staff really go out of their way to make things jolly. I sampled some of other cocktails at our table and found them to be well prepared.

Miracle at Brewster’s

We ventured to San Jose later that night to check out Miracle at MiniBoss, an arcade themed bar. Mrs. Mai Tai had been to the sister bar Paper Plane earlier in the week and we thought we’d give MiniBoss a try. The drinks here were really good, including the Miracle Mouse that comes in a cute mug and features bourbon, vermouth, strawberry, citrus, and pamplemousse liqueur that likely inspired the name of the cocktail. This wasn’t too sweet and I thought it was delightful. Slightly less good was the Snowball Old Fashioned that our son ordered, just not quite sweet enough, though Mrs. Mai Tai’s Koala LaLaLa was a very refreshing highball with tequila. Cheery Cherry Chocosaurus is more of a desert cocktail but if that’s your thing you’ll love it.

Miracle Mouse

On Festivus Tuesday we battled the rain to check out Pacific Cocktail Heaven in San Francisco. This place is so popular they even charge a $10 cover just to enter. But the skills of the bartenders are evident that the Yippe Ki Yay and Koala cocktails were even better than the other places we tried. Candy Cane Lane is served in a unicorn mug and was a little less sweet than at Brewster’s. PCH was even able to make a pretty reasonable off-menu Mai Tai with Kō Hana rum at my request.

Each of these Miracle locations sets the prices for the cocktails and the mugs/glassware for sale. While the cocktail prices only vary a little, we were shocked to see the mugs at PCH going for $40 which is double what Brewster’s and MiniBoss were charging. It’s a Festivus Miracle!

Miracle hours and dates vary by location but usually run up to New Year’s or a little bit past.

PCH
MiniBoss