Category: Travel

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Ink Blot Cocktails at Anonymous Shrink’s Office in Prague

There are several Anonymous bars in Prague, themed around the Guy Fawkes / V for Vandetta related Anonymous movement. The Shrink’s Office offers craft cocktails but the selection is unique and compelling.

Rather than being presented with a traditional cocktail menu, the staff hands you a series of cards with ink blots on them. This Rorschach Test is all you have to go on to choose your cocktail, though there’s a two or three word description on the back. That’s it. That’s all you have to go on to order the cocktails.

The Anonymous vibe is in full effect when the drink is brought to your table, though otherwise the staff aren’t masked. They did a good job walking us through the menu and asking if we had any allergies. After we were served they did describe the ingredients of the cocktails, for example the milky coffee cocktail was more than a mere Espresso Martini. This complex drink had sherry and cherry liqueur along with coffee to make quite a nice and different cocktail. Our other two drinks were also really great.

A second menu is available where they provide a portable CD player with some songs to listen to, and there’s a retail component with some very good spirits available. Small bites are also available for order in this basement bar.

Anonymous Shrink’s Office is located in Prague 1, and has a speakeasy entrance inside the Bulletproof Bar. We loved Prague and this was one of the highlights.

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Mr. Fogg’s Themed Bars

Mr. Fogg’s is a chain of Victorian-era themed bars and tavern pubs mostly in central London. Each location has a variant on the theme with unique cocktails. We visited the Society of Exploration and also the Apothecary.

Both were a good time, with attentive service and some quality cocktails with a great presentation. The Mechanical Mixologist at the Society location makes a Negroni and is kind of neat if that cocktail is your thing. We stuck to rum drinks and felt they were really good.

There are some small bites available in the bar locations, and we had the cheddar cheese plate that also comes with breadsticks, and found the cheese to be really rich with flavor. A full menu is available at the tavern locations.

The Apothecary location had some interesting cocktail names (Soaked in Ether / Emerald Euphoria) and isn’t quite as well themed but they do offer cocktails made with vintage spirits. I took an interest in the 1970s Bacardi that’s used in the Hemingway Daiquiri and asked if the rum was available on its own. The manger came over and offered a little pour on the house just because I think they rarely have anyone express an interest in the spirits themselves. This Bacardi was delightful,  very crisp but also with deeper fruity flavors than you see in today’s expression.

Mr. Fogg’s was a lot of fun in both locations. Some good people watching and great relaxing mood music.

Society of Exploration
Apothecary
Vintage Bacardi
Apothecary
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Quality Cocktails are Still a Thing at San Francisco’s Tonga Room

After the San Francisco Giants home opener, we headed to The Tonga Room for a Friday night dinner and drinks. I’m pleased to report that the refreshed cocktail menu from October is still being used and that the quality hasn’t degraded at all. We will note that prices have increased $2-4 per cocktail, putting these firmly as the most expensive in town though. The Mai Tai and Hand Shaken Colada cocktails were big hits with our friends and Mrs. Mai Tai liked the tropical Mimosa-style Tiny Bubbles cocktail.

Tiki Hunter at The Tonga Room

The Tonga Room’s Zombie features five different rums with falernum, grenadine, Don’s Mix, along with a bit of pineapple juice. It most certainly packs a punch, and I found it to be pretty good. I also liked the Wiki Wiki cocktail, a juicy blend of rums, spices, and just the right amount of Allspice Dram. Meanwhile, the Tiki Hunter remains the most interesting and flavor-forward tropical cocktail – don’t let the listed Jäegermeister component scare you off, it’s delicious.

The band plays on the floating stage starting at 7:00 pm, with the players this time featuring two female vocalists. This worked great on a stellar version of Fleetwood Mac’s mellow hit “Dreams.” But we continue to feel that 80s pop songs like “Crazy for You” don’t play as well as those from earlier decades. If pop must be played, the Sixties and Seventies feel more organic and connected to this retro leaning Polynesian palace.

Our dinner and service were as stellar as always. The Asian-inspired dishes are really good here, though I wish there was a little bit more variety on the menu as this is very seafood forward. The prices are fairly high, though not outside what you’d expect from a fine dining restaurant in The City. And you can’t beat the gorgeous interior with the pool and the thunderstorm that comes every 20 minutes. But remember that it’s a $1000 fine for jumping in the pool. Staff told me they’ve already had one person do this so far this year, which seems like way more than one too many.

Wiki Wiki
Mai Tai, Colada, Tiny Bubbles
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The Best Mai Tais and Tiki Bars in Las Vegas

We’ve added a new feature page to UltimateMaiTai.com covering the top Mai Tais and Tiki Bars in Las Vegas.

What’s the best Mai Tai in Las Vegas? Is it Jammyland, the craft cocktail bar with a reggae twist? Or is it Stray Pirate, the new bar with a theme of pirate dogs? Or is it Starboard Tack, the off-strip restaurant with a retro vibe? Perhaps there’s a wild-card entry from a bar with a potentially short lifespan.

On the Tiki Bar side, the best option might not technically be a tiki bar to begin with, and the true tiki bars all have pros and cons. So the “best” might depend on what you value most, such as decor, cocktails, or service. We have our Ultimate Mai Tai Tiki Bar rating system in place plus narratives for each location to help you decide.

Top Mai Tais and Tiki Bars in Las Vegas

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Las Vegas’ Lost Spirits Distillery Continues to Impress

When you order tickets to the Lost Spirits Distillery experience they encourage you to arrive sober saying “for most people, pre-gaming is a bad idea and thus discouraged.” After visiting three bars we decided to embrace all that Vegas offers regardless of the consequences and bought tickets anyway.

The combination of rum tasting and intimate modern cirque performances is so unique, with a maze-like layout of rooms, lounges, and performance spaces. The performances on each stage combine a few different performers for about 20 minutes, then a break to encourage the crowd to continue wandering. We were really impressed again by the performers, though we did run out of steam towards the end of our show period. I guess that advice on pre-gaming was sound.

In terms of rums, we got to try four expressions including a navy rum, a pineapple and cherry infused rums, and a heavy pot still rum called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that’s inspired by the venue’s signature lounge and optional dining experience. These rums are well-positioned for a general audience and so are pretty easy to drink (and in the case of the cherry rum by adding sugar). There’s a gift shop where you can take home bottles.

There’s no way to see everything during your visit, given that there are performances happening on at least two or three stages simultaneously, but this is half the fun. Lost Spirits is a lot of fun and a great option with a group.

20,000 Leagues lounge
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Expanded Seating at Trader Vic’s San Jose Airport

The seating areas at Trader Vic’s San Jose Airport have been expanded in the last couple weeks, providing airport passengers with an easier to see option to enjoy Mai Tais and all of Trader Vic’s offerings.



We hear Trader Vic’s is doing very well at the airport, and you don’t expand seating if business is struggling. There’s also a Trader Vic’s coming in 2024 to the Oakland Airport, according to recent news reports.



My 7:24 am Mai Tai was pretty great and paired well with coffee that also tasted just fine.

Remember that you can also get drinks to-go at the airport, and remember to finish any drinks with alcohol before leaving the airport or boarding a plane.

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Palm Breeze Bar at Disneyland Hotel

The new DVC Villas at Disneyland Hotel opened recently and so we went to check it out during an afternoon break from park touring. The midcentury-inspired touches look nice, though this wing does not really integrate with the rest of the hotel towers. There’s only a minimal lobby space here, but the Palm Breeze Bar is adjacent to that entry and also to the small pool for this wing.

There are a lot of fun touches here, and plenty of midcentury design elements. We sat at the bar and ordered a Blue Bee’s Knees, which is a traditional gin-based Bee’s Knees with muddled blueberries. The level of skill and technique from the bartender was not as strong as we’ve grown accustomed to at Trader Sam’s / Tangaroa Terrace across the way, and so the drink was just so-so. Hopefully, this will improve over time.

We did see some other guests order an off-menu Mai Tai, which was prepared with BG Reynolds Orgeat (same is as used at Trader Sam’s). But, the limited rum selection at the Palm Breeze Bar meant this was mostly made with the sugar-heavy Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva Rum, so not really a great choice for this cocktail.

The rest of the cocktails at Palm Breeze Bar lean to inspired but tourist friendly recipes, including a few highballs, some frozen drinks, and quite a few mocktails. There’s a food menu which we didn’t try, but otherwise this place looks like a nice place to hang out if you can’t get into Trader Sam’s or Tangaroa Terrace.