Posts

Posted on

Rum Sub Mai Tai at Rhumbar at The Mirage

Rhumbar Ultra Lounge is a cocktail bar and patio on the southern side of The Mirage. We’d been walking for a while and decided to relax with a drink. Our bartender Ezequiel was super friendly and since it was kind of slow I decided to ask for some rum substitutions from their normal “Mai Tai Or Die” cocktail. I asked for Appleton 12 and Smith & Cross, a couple of fine rums from their well-stocked back bar of rum selections. Ezequiel encouraged me to also have some Clement Blanc in the mix and I trusted him with the recommendation. The Mai Tai here does use a little pineapple juice but it is not overly heavy and adds a nice tough of sweetness to the cocktail.

My Rum Sub Mai Tai was really great, better than the very good standard Rhumbar Mai Tai we had here on our last visit. The blend of flavors was truly balanced and the orgeat and pineapple did work well together to add sweetness to the cocktail. The skull mug is pretty cool, too.

The retro theme of Rhumbar is really nice, including heavy use of breeze blocks on the patio. Mrs. Mai Tai’s Save the Bees cocktail with bourbon and honey was also very good. I’m sure the Ultra Lounge vibe is different in the later evening on a weekend, but for Saturday afternoon it was totally chill with a relaxed vibe and friendly staff.

Posted on

Our New Vegas Tradition: Brunch at Red Dwarf

The Sunday Surf Brunch at Red Dwarf is our new tradition. We enjoyed this on our last trip and made sure to do this again. Red Dwarf is a dive-leaning tiki bar that’s off strip in Vegas. They serve Detroit-style pizza (crust, toppings, cheese, sauce) that is fantastic, along with a small cocktail menu and a large beer selection. Don’t overlook the light Dwarf Piss beer for only $4.

Dwarf Piss

Our pizza was really great, but the cocktails here are pretty good too. Not exactly craft in orientation, nonetheless I’ve felt the Red Dwarf cocktails are better balanced than at Golden Tiki and Frankie’s Tiki Room in my experience. The standard Mai Tai here is quite good with a lighter leaning rum blend that is not assertive and probably really good for the average Vegas resident or tourist. But there are some truly outstanding rums behind the bar that can elevate your Mai Tai experience.

Mai Tai

I also enjoyed the Trinidad, Not Your Dad that has Bourbon, Angostura Amaro, Lime, Lemon, Orgeat, Ginger Beer, Ango, and Absinthe. It leads sweet, in a good way, and is a good example of the kind of complete cocktail you wouldn’t necessarily expect in a dive bar. Similarly, Mrs. Mai Tai loved her I Just Blew Myself with Rumhaven coconut rum, Blue Curacao, cinnamon, coconut, pineapple, and lime. It’s really great.

There’s a TV above the bar that was showing classic Twilight Zone episodes, plus a screen showing surf footage including a surf-oriented episode of The Flintstones and the classic Hawaii Trilogy of Brady Bunch episodes. Music today was from Generic Surf Band, a tight trio of Vegas locals. Locals are friendly here and the staff are super friendly and work hard to serve everyone.

I Blew Myself
Trinidad, Not My Dad
Posted on

Forbidden Island Parking Lot Sale

Great day on the patio in Alameda for the annual Parking Lot Sale at Forbidden Island. There were some really great vendors on Sunday for our visit, and I came away with a lantern from Relic Vintage and a Disney aloha shirt and a fish float from Tiki Tacky Tu. Mrs. Mai Tai bought a necklace from Match Accessories. We look forward to this event every year. DJ Tanoa Stewart provided some great garage rock-leaning vintage tunes.

My lantern worked out really great. Besides looking nice on our patio, it matched the cocktail I’d already ordered: the Port Light. Serendipity! Forbidden Island’s Port Light cocktail is perfectly balanced with just the right amount of bourbon. We also enjoyed the Spam Musubi.

Port Light Cocktail
Posted on

Sacramento’s Birds of Paradise Lounge

Great afternoon in Sacramento as invited guests for the @sac_ohana Tiki Crawl stop at @birdsofparadiselounge. We thank consummate hosts Correy and Mariela for the invite. Fantastic decor throughout the home and backyard. So many treasures and fine art.



The rum sponsor for this stop was Santa Teresa 1796, a Solera aged column still rum from Venezuela. This isn’t my favorite style but @mrs_bravo did a fantastic job incorporating this into the cocktails. I enjoyed the 1796 Old Fashioned that included a Birds of Paradise logo on the ice cube. The spicy Chicha Cooler featured Peruvian purple corn, spices, and ginger beer. My favorite was the Tropical Kingbird featuring banana and cinnamon, with a nice Santa Teresa rum accent.



Nice to see the Sacramento Ohana folks too. Their ticketed three day tiki crawl seems to be extraordinary well organized and lots of fun with DJs, food, and vendors at the various stops.

Posted on

Star Trek Trivia at The Kon-Tiki Room

The Kon-Tiki Room at Palmetto has been developing its own identity as a tiki bar with a pop culture orientation, thanks in part to its locale across the street from the Fox Theater concert venue. And then with Star Trek nights on Thursdays, complete with special cocktails and episodes playing on a fairly tucked away TV screen. More recently, Fridays are devoted to X-Files and Sundays feature craft projects.

Team name: Species 69420

Last Thursday was the first bar trivia version of Star Trek Thursdays and so I thought I’d see how this worked and maybe see how much TOS and Voyager trivia I’d be able to recall. Trivia was hosted well by Allie and Andre with prizes from Soytrek.

There weren’t high stakes but I found myself on a great team with Chris, Emily, and Ramona and between the four of us we were leading after two rounds. The third round veered from Star Trek and was Batman trivia, resulting in us falling behind another team. We tied that team on the fourth round so we fell one question short of winning (Holy Cliffhangers, Batman!). Quite fun if you have any appreciation of Star Trek – even if, like me, you haven’t watched some of the series.

Allie and Andre

Jeni and Tori did a great job keeping up with orders between rounds, and I quite enjoyed the Kon-Tiki Room’s premium Stargazer cocktail. This complex grog has a swirl of flavors and also includes Kon-Tiki’s amazing private barrel rum from Worthy Park. Kon-Tiki Room continues to buck purist expectations musically, since they were playing 80’s modern rock. Regular readers know I’d prefer something more vintage, but at least the songs being played were lesser hits you don’t hear every day (e.g. “Be Good, Johnny” by Men at Work, “Love Comes Quickly” by Pet Shop Boys). The Frozen Disco Banana is still being served, which assures a great time, every time at the Kon-Tiki Room.

Stargazer
Frozen Disco Banana
Posted on

New Cocktails at Oakland’s Kon-Tiki

Mrs. Mai Tai and ventured to Oakland to check out the new cocktail menu at The Kon-Tiki. This is a major overhaul and we wanted to try some of the new cocktails. We also saw that the interior of Kon-Tiki is receiving a “space” themed overhaul to coincide with the new menu’s theme. This is not really to our taste, especially when accompanied by some sleepy 60s jazz songs. Things felt a lot better once a selection of 70’s-80s deep cut space-rock songs were being played (Alan Parsons, Neu!, Japan), which at least had a bit of pep and reminded us of the Kon-Tiki’s heyday as a Yacht Rock place.

We tried four of the new cocktails.

Heyerdahl Maneuver and Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot
This Blue Hawaiian riff features St. Lucian and Jamaica Rums, Blue Curacao, Coconut, Pineapple, Lime, Orange, and Peychauds Bitters. We both felt this needed more coconut. Just so-so.

Heyerdahl Maneuver
Better was this cocktail with Aquavit as a base, along with Pisco, Charanda, Lavender, Banana, Honey, Grapefruit, and Lemon. Tastes lighter than the blend of ingredients might indicate and features a really interesting and unique taste. Totally worth trying – it might be your favorite.

Lunar Camel and Event Horizon

Event Horizon
This was an absolutely fabulous cocktail. Using aged Charanda, Coffee Liqueur, Vanilla, Angostura and Cacao Bitters, this has a wonderful taste and a perfect blend of bitter and sweet along with a very approachable Mexican rum base. We both thought this was truly excellent.

Lunar Camel
Far and away my personal favorite and Mrs. Mai Tai thought it was great as well. The Lunar Camel has Barbados Rum, Apple Brandy, Tamarind, Lemon, Amaro, and Angostura Bitters. This felt like an alien version of a rum barrel and features a truly satisfying blend of ingredients. Perfect mouthfeel. I can’t wait to try this again, it’s that good.

UFO coming soon