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Vintage Cocktail Club: Dublin’s Best Cocktails

We’d heard that Vintage Cocktail Club had great cocktails including a tiki section, so we planned to visit during our trip to Dublin Ireland. We made time during our first day in Dublin to check it out, having some difficulty finding the location thanks to a true speakeasy entrance and sleep deprivation from our red-eye.



Longtime VCC employee Ann Marie was our server and helped us through the menu options and offering recommendations when requested. We were so impressed by our cocktails we returned and saw Ann Marie again the next day and went again during our third day in town to revisit some of our favorites.

VCC has three floors, the middle of which has a bar and lounge seating. Upstairs there’s an outdoor patio with an additional bar if it gets busy, plus a downstairs bar and lounge open during certain hours (downstairs is the only place where you can sit at the bar). It’s a fun and elegant venue with appropriately relaxing jazz music and vintage touches.

VCC Mai Tai

In terms of the tiki menu, I ordered the Mai Tai and Fog Cutter on our first visit. The Mai Tai uses Havana Club 7, Goslings, and Wray & Nephew rums, plus Giffard Orgeat. I usually don’t like the Giffard but maybe it’s different in Europe because I loved the almond flavors in the rich Mai Tai served over a large cube. On another visit I asked for it over crushed ice and Appleton Signature replacing the Goslings and the Mai Tai was even better and one of the best this year. The Fog Cutter was not too citrusy and had plenty of booze hidden in the balanced blend. I prefer cream sherry rather than Manzanilla but this was a really fine Fog Cutter.

Tweaked Mai Tai with crushed ice

In fact, all of the drinks we had were really good with some including the Wee Dram, Dirty Wizard, Single Elix, Tequila Mockingbird, and Falls Road Flip being excellent. We adored Absinthe Minded, one of Ann Marie’s recipes that includes smokey Irish whiskey, Sloe Gin, and Absinthe.

Needless to say, we absolutely loved Vintage Cocktail Club for its great cocktails, amazing service, and relaxing vibe. We at meals in pubs, but for cocktails Vintage Cocktail Club would be hard to beat.

Dirty Wizard
Absinthe Minded
Fog Cutter
Tequila Mocking Bird
Falls Road Flip
Wee Dram
A.W.O.L.
Daiquiri
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Hole in the Wall Pub: Europe’s Longest Pub

We ventured out of the downtown area of Dublin to check out Hole in the Wall, the ironically named pub that’s the longest in Europe. Tightly nestled between a suburban road and Phoenix Park, the pub owners acquired a series of buildings which now seemingly go on and on and on. The venue dates from 1651 and there are so many little nooks and treasured contained within.

We arrived at lunchtime and were seated in the front room, as the venue was not particularly crowded. We enjoyed lunch, beer, and cider. When our meal was done we wandered through to some o of the other rooms, seeing that each room had its own character.

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The Temple Bar Dublin: Far from a Tourist Trap

The brightly colored Temple Bar is named after the Dublin neighborhood where it resides. The place has something of a reputation as a tourist trap, in fact our taxi driver warned us that it wasn’t worth it. We arrived at around 10:00 am with an opening time listed as 10:30. We did see that some of doors were open with people inside so took a look to check out the venue.

Inside, we saw that one of the bars was already open and so it seemed like an opportune time for a Guinness. People told us that Guinness tastes different here compared to the states, though I couldn’t ascertain the difference myself. The venue has all kinds of little rooms that are fun to wander within and hang out in, and the people watching is so good a group of four lads asked me to take their picture. The myriad historical details are interesting to check out and it is wall to wall stickers on the way down to the toilets that may have had a recent addition.

By the time we left there was traditional Irish music being played by a trio and the space was starting to fill up. The visit was anything but a tourist trap, though it wouldn’t have been worth it later when you have to wait for an hour to get a drink. Like a lot of things, being early has its advantages.

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1944 Mai Tai at Bar of America

The Bar of America is a Truckee restaurant that’s part of the Gar Woods chain of restaurants that are officially licensed to serve Trader Vic’s Mai Tais, including Vic’s glassware and made with Trader Vic’s syrups and rums. I chose the 1944 Mai Tai made with orgeat and orange curacao over the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai that’s made with Mai Tai Concentrate and it was just as great as I’ve had at Trader Vic’s locations. It’s a testament to this particular set of ingredients and the Trader Vic’s Royal Amber rum that actually works great in this cocktail.

We visited Bar of America for lunch on our way to Reno and had a nice meal including some brunch options that are available on the weekends.

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Last Spring Cocktails at Alter Ego

We returned to Alter Ego Cocktail Club to give their Spring 2026 seasonal menu one last try, with Mrs. Mai Tai trying the High Heels and Cigarettes that features Scotch as a trainer for our upcoming trip to British Isles and Scotland. Meanwhile, I absolutely loved the zesty flavors of First Bloom that features basic, coconut, and lemon. The drinks at Alter Ego are really top notch and consistent on each of our visits.

First Bloom

Another favorite is the Bread and Butter, featuring salted butter and savory sprinkles on top. We love it, and the fries also have some Japanese seasoning as well. The chicken skewers are also very good.

Paul let us know they’ve introduced a new late night cocktail menu that features some of Alter Ego’s signature cocktails as well as some modern classic such as the Trinidadi Issues, Second Serve, and Smoke Ume Margarita. Some of these some from seminal venues and bartenders of the last 25 years of the craft cocktail revolution.

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Crowd-Pleasing Tiki Recipe: Blue Hawai-Tai Cocktail

I had a lemon to kill and I’d been thinking about revisiting this hybrid Mai Tai / Blue Hawaii cocktail that I developed a few years back. It leans sweet, so feel free to pull back on the simple syrup, but I do still think this works and can be a crowd-pleaser for cocktail newbies.

Blue Hawai-Tai by Kevin Crossman
1 oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Simple Syrup
½ oz Blue Curacao
1 oz White Overproof Jamaican Rum
½ oz Aged White Rum
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice. Shake and dump into a small snifter glass.

  • Giffard is an amazing orange liqueur that also happens to be blue, strongly recommended.
  • Any overproof Jamaican rum would do fine here, demonstrated in this case by the Monymusk. If you like it more punchy than use one that’s 100% pot still, like Worthy Park Overproof or Rum Fire.
  • For the white rum, use one with a bit of age and ideally at least some pot still components to remind you that a Mai Tai started with an aged rum. My old bottle of Denizen 3 works great, as would Probitas, Breezeway blend, or Myers’s Platinum White.
  • Latitude 29 Orgeat is great in this application as the syrup is fairly clear and not cloudy like some orgeat can be.
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Fireworks at Trader Vic’s Emeryville

The Golden Gate Bridge fireworks were of interest to Mrs Mai Tai, but the high threat of fog made elaborate plans seem risky, so we took a sort of safe route by heading to Emeryville to have some drinks at Trader Vic’s before heading to the end of the peninsula to see if we could see any fireworks. Powell Street was closed at Access Rd before you get to the Watergate complex but we knew we could park at the Hilton Garden Inn, then walk down the street to Vic’s and the marina later.

Trader Vic’s had the Mai Tai Lounge open in “Speakeasy” mode with a somewhat limited drink and small bites menu. Additionally, there was a private event in the back of the venue that we saw people heading back to, but the dining room was not open. The bar was not that full, mostly locals, but we enjoyed sharing the table Debbie and Greg Smith who arrived just before us. The Crispy Prawns were really great on this visit, just about the best I’ve ever had.

Since the bar wasn’t too busy we did go off-menu slightly with a couple of called rum Mai Tais, which Carlos was kind enough to roll with. The Appleton 12 Mai Tai was really good but even better was the one made with Hamilton Navy Strength whose bold flavors shine in this cocktail. We also had a San Francisco Mai Tai, Guava Tai, Chi-Chi, Trader Vic’s Grog, and standard Mai Tai and found them all to be made perfectly for a group of five that know how these are supposed to taste like.

Mai Tai with Hamilton Navy Strength Rum

The fireworks were scheduled to start at 9:30 so we walked from Trader Vic’s down the end of the Emeryville marina. Crowds had gathered but we could tell we were unlikely to see much since the fog over the bridge was quite heavy. We saw a few fireworks coming from Treasure Island, and lots more in Oakland, but not the signature show on the Golden Gate. It was sort of expected, so at least we got to have drinks at Trader Vic’s.

As we walked back to the car we saw that someone had pulled into the Trader Vic’s parking lot with a van full of illegal fireworks. It was quite the show, but seemingly dangerous where a little spark would threaten the 50+ year old tiki temple. We heard the police were called and hopefully the perpetrators prosecuted.