Category: Travel

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Beautiful Day on the Santa Cruz Wharf at Makai Tiki Bar

My company gave me Friday off for a “wellness day” so Mrs. Mai Tai and I went over to the Santa Cruz area for shopping and lunch. After a quick visit to Capitola and Soquel, we drove onto the Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch at Makai Island Kitchen and Groggery.

Makai has been a favorite of ours for some time, including the rotating bar area. This is such a unique feature and you have full views of the ocean, Makai’s Captain’s Table room, and the rest of the restaurant. We also saw a vast rum list that was over 30 pages and according to staff features over 620 rums, very quietly one of the largest collections of any venue in the United States. We both enjoyed our lunch, I had the Poke Bowl that includes lychee and crushed macadamia nuts as different kind of options, with Mrs. Mai Tai having the Halibut Green Curry Bowl.

There are bunch of different cocktail options including many developed by the crew. I started with a 1944 Mai Tai that I should have loved, featuring Appleton Signature, Smith & Cross, and Planteray Xaymaca rums (three of my favorites), but this Mai Tai was too lime forward and I could barely taste the rum. We had much better luck with the other cocktails, including the sweet banana flavors of Squid Ink, the light gin and lavender flavors of Purple Haze, and the not-too-sweet ube and coconut Triumph & Disaster. Our favorite was Pau Hana, a gin and elderflower cocktail that incorporated lemon and raspberry. This cocktail was developed by Hana Kingsbury (see what she did there) who was our server and posed with a photo with her creation.

The cocktail and rum options at Makai remain strong, plus their island far remains high quality and moderately priced. We enjoy things inside in the rotating bar, but the patio outside is pretty nice including a couple of very large tikis to help set the mood. Along the way, we saw birds and sea lions from our vantage point, and then strolled to the end of the pier to check out more sea lions, sea birds, and seagulls.

1944 Mai Tai, Squid Ink, Pau Hana, Purple Haze

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Harry Potter Themed Bar: Wizards & Wands in San Francisco

If you’re into themed bars, Wizard & Wands offers a Harry Potter-inspired experience featuring good cocktails, immersive decor, and some special effects. The bar is located in San Francisco’s Marina District, and includes Drag Brunch events on the weekends. Our party decided to visit later on a Saturday afternoon for some cocktails and conversation. Patrons are even encouraged to dress in costume while visiting.

The entry area features some thematic elements and occasional light shows. There’s a nice dark tavern vibe in this area which is where our party of six was seated. There are a few themed cocktails including riffs on standards plus beer choices. I quite enjoyed the Love Potion with tequila/hibiscus and the Butterbeer flavored Wizard Brew was also very good. Some of the drinks come with special features, such as the smoke with Glen’s or the note that’s set on fire with Julie’s Espresso Elixir, though they don’t lean heavily on the drink gimmicks here.

Every so often there would a light show and some thematic music, including the ceiling tiles in the lower room which are screen-based. Mostly though we spent the afternoon in conversation with a variety of dance tracks (Charli XCX, Dua Lipa) playing in the background. Wizards & Wands also serves bar food, which our party also enjoyed.

Unlike some bars that change theming every quarter, Wizards & Wands is committed to this theme and so it is more immersive than most pop-ups. If this kind of theme is your thing or if you’re just in the Marina looking for a place to escape, Wizards & Wands is a great option.

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Best Mai Tai in Vegas at Viking Mike’s Alpine Yurt Bar?

Our weekend tour of themed bars and restaurants was highlighted by a visit at opening to Viking Mike’s Alpine Yurt Bar in Vegas’ Arts District. We arrived about 15 minutes before opening and a crowd started to gather, which was good news since being early meant we were able to get seated at the bar back in the yurt portion of the venue. The thematic elements are so well-done here, including the impressive carvings outside and continuing past the first bar with an aurora borealis effect. The round yurt section was breathtaking with seating ringing the exterior portion of the room and featuring stone, furs, and Scandinavian textures.

Once seated we received a small non-alcoholic welcome drink featuring compote and spices. The cocktail menu features riffs on a number of classic cocktails including the Mikkel-Tai with tequila, Rum Fire, hazelnut sage orgeat, and Kronan Swedish Punsch. Mai Tai purists wouldn’t consider this variant up to Trader Vic’s standards but in this writer’s opinion the cocktail was fantastic – very rich and nutty, with the tequila and Jamaican rum really working well together. This was easily one of the best new Mai Tai style cocktails I’ve had in a while – don’t skip it.

Mikkel-Tai

The other cocktails our party tried were similarly well-done, and there are some great beer and wine options as well. Some others even had the shared Shot-Ski for four, which the staff set up by ringing bells and shouting as if this was a Viking victory cheer. Mike’s also offers some good food options. One of our party ordered the sausage tower and I had filling chicken schnitzel sandwich and house browns. A “tin” of Swedish fish completed our meal. We found the food to be very authentic to items we’ve had in Europe and despite a venue-filling crowd the food came out promptly and was served piping hot.

Viking Mike’s is one of the best themed bars in Las Vegas and compares favorably to the other destinations in the burgeoning Arts District bar scene.

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The Sex Panther at Prowl

Prowl is a jungle themed lounge in Las Vegas’ arts district, next door to Stray Pirate and co-owned by the some of the same crew. We landed early evening on Friday to find a small mixed crowd and one bartender holding court. The thematic elements include some LED screens, plenty foliage, and a stone idol on one wall. There are a variety of seating areas and booths, plus some great looking lamps that’ll give you retro vibes.

The menu has all kinds of fun nods, including “For a Good Time, Call 1-888-87-PROWL” (call it, it works), Monstera Mash, and Mustache Ride. As a fan of the Anchorman movie back in the day, I was immediately were drawn to Sex Panther and then very intrigued by the Mai Tai meets Margarita ingredient list that includes Mexican rum, tequila, pepita orgeat, and of course “bits of real panther.” This was a good cocktail, though I would have preferred it over crushed ice rather than served up.

Our bartender Jacklyn did a great job checking in with our party and we all seemed to enjoy the vibe and the cocktails. There are a variety of merch options including glassware designed by McBiff, hats, and more. The Arts District is really booming with great cocktail bars, with Prowl being another recent fun addition.

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Wilfred’s Lounge Has The Sesame Mai Tai You Never Knew You Needed… Until You Did

We always enjoy visits to Wilfred’s Lounge in downtown Napa, which is still doing a great job offering a Hawaiian-leaning food menu and a variety of exotic cocktails. This time we feasted on appetizers including a pretty nice Pupu Sampler Platter along with Spam fries and Spam musubi. The standout here were the Spam fries, perfectly fried and seasoned – and the salmon rangoon in the sampler platter had a nice spicy bite to them as well.

For drinks, Mrs. Mai Tai went with the Maximum Aloha which is still made to original specs and contains so many great flavors – not as sweet as you’d think, either. It is still the best cocktail here, so if you’ve never had this cocktail it is definitely worth the trip.

I perused the Mai Tai menu and decided to try something new by ordering the San Fransokyo. It’s quite a stretch to call this a “Mai Tai” considering it doesn’t have any original Mai Tai ingredients, but it has a type of orgeat so I suppose that’s fine. This black cocktail has some components I usually don’t have, including shochu, sake, cachaca, pisco, Cherry Heering, black sesame orgeat, shiso, and lemon. This is really sesame forward, and found it to be pretty enjoyable too. Maybe not in my regular rotation but definitely glad I tried it.

Wilfred’s Lounge also features great views of the Napa River, with fire-pit lounge seating upstairs that is even better when it’s warmer.

San Fransokyo and Maximum Aloha

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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