Traveling the Bay Area and beyond to find the best Mai Tai in the world! Tiki, cocktails, and adventures by Kevin Crossman
Had a nice lunch on the patio at the Tangaroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel when we arrived in Anaheim.
This included an off-menu Planter’s Punch that was really quite good. I really like how off-menu orders are usually accommodated at Trader Sam’s/Tangaroa, and typically executed very well.
A hot mic captured the feeling of a PGA pro when Patrick Cantlay was captured teeing off at the 17th hole at the Tournament of Champions recently in Hawaii.
“I’ve been waiting for this weather for 40 years! These pampered fucks need to play! All right, Revvy. Two more holes then we can get a Mai Tai.”
I’m sure many of you already know about this gem of a wine and spirits store in Costa Mesa, CA but I thought I’d post this for those who aren’t already hip. Especially for SoCal folks, this place is an essential resource.
Their store was an easy drive for us the other day during a hot afternoon when we took a break from Disneyland. So much selection: I’ve never seen a store that carries so much rum! If you’re getting started with rum, this is a great place to start your journey.
Hi-Time also does shipping to many states from their online store. Shipping isn’t cheap for a single bottle but isn’t bad if you’re doing a bunch of bottles.
Based in San Diego, Villager Spirits has a line of canned cocktails including a Mai Tai.
“Made with rum, curaçao, and lime” sounds like a great place to start. But things went sideways along the way in this very artificial coconut and pineapple flavored “Mai Tai.” Sadly, we couldn’t finish the can, so we can’t recommend this.
More handcrafting is needed.
We ventured to Damon’s Steak House for a family meal. We’ve been going to Damon’s since the 1990s because we love the vintage Polynesian decor and old school service style. And we sort of have a dysfunctional relationship with their signature cocktail: Damon’s Famous Mai Tai. It isn’t really great, but we can’t stop coming to try it. Mrs. Mai Tai doesn’t mind because their other standard cocktail is the Chi Chi.
A recent menu change is that they are leaning in big time to provide variations of the Mai Tai and Chi Chi. This is probably a good trend, and some of them seemed like inspired options. Though, notably, all of these have ‘Orgeat “secret sauce”‘ which is an unusual label. Once makes you wonder if it is really orgeat or something different.
The Trader Vics’ 1944 Mai Tai wasn’t bad at all, aside from the limp mint. This at least resembled a Mai Tai and wasn’t overly sweet. The same can’t be said of the Royal Mai Tai, which we thought might be good given the more exotic rums from Martinique and Hawaii. We saw the grenadine on the ingredient list, thinking it would be a dash. Instead it seemed to be a heavy splash of grenadine. Definitely not good and way too sticky sweet. Splitting the difference was Damon’s original island-style Mai Tai.
Service was truly excellent, with drink refills and cocktail refreshers coming super quickly. There was a mix-up with our soup, which our waiter fixed right away. There didn’t seem to be much music playing and the bar was filled with revelers, though it was relaxed out on the upper seating area where we were. They give you a lot of food at Damon’s, including soup or salad (the Split Pea Soup was great), and the staff offered some Mac and Cheese for our son who didn’t want either soup or salad. Food was just okay overall.
Damon’s hasn’t changed much in the 25 years we’ve been going. Still very old school for the most part, with some recent attempts to elevate the cocktails. Definitely have to have the right attitude going in, but we enjoyed our experience once again.
Mrs. Mai Tai and I ventured to Tonga Hut on Thursday night, expecting to hang out in their large COVID-era patio. We were greeted and offered inside seating, told that capacity was under 50% and a bit less than that on this particular evening. So we did the indoor thing at LA’s oldest tiki bar.
This was our first time at the North Hollywood Tonga Hut location. The Christmas decor was up and we were seated in one of the nice covered booths. So many nice things to look at, including the Drooling Bastard and all the plaques from the hearty souls who drank all the cocktails from the Grog Log within a year.
Our service was great, totally on the spot to check for additional drinks and super friendly. Music was mostly 90s-2000s modern rock, which wasn’t my preference for a tiki bar but it is a style of music I like and at least wasn’t top 40. Exotica was playing out on the patio.
I liked the Tonga Hut Mai Tai. While not overly challenging, I thought it was balanced well enough and sure was easy to drink (I chose the standard option, foregoing the Martinique rum option). I followed it up with a Tabu Tabu Grog, featuring OFTD, Honey, Grapefruit, Lime, Spices, and Passion Fruit. This was a really great ‘Grog’ variant.
Mrs. Mai Tai did her standard, the Nutty Chi Chi, and then followed up with the Mojave Punch featuring Hibiscus Syrup. I loved that punch at the Tonga Hut location in Palm Springs and thought it was great here, too. But Mrs. Mai Tai thought it leaned too tart.
Glad we finally made it to Tonga Hut. Thanks to Marie King and to the staff for a great time.
There was an online discussion started recently by Maxton Kennedy, current bar manager at Forbidden Island and previously from The Kon-Tiki in Oakland and Tiki Tolteca in New Orleans. Notably, Maxton also previously had a stint at the French 75 Bar in NOLA.
Maxton’s premise was that many are making the French 75 incorrectly, since most published recipes use Gin rather than the French spirit, Cognac. It does seem like if the cocktail is a French origin, then the pair of Cognac and Champagne would make sense.
This idea intrigued me and so without getting into the politics we made these side by side. I also did a poll on my Instagram stories, which split 60/40 in favor of Gin.
French 75
½ oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Simple Syrup
1 oz Gin or Cognac
Top with 1 oz Champagne
I tried both and to me the Gin version with Beefeater Gin tasted better than the one with Ferrand Cognac. Perhaps different spirits in each category would have given a different result, but among these two the floral notes from the Gin seemed to work better with the Champagne.
Though, honestly, straight Champagne tasted better than either.