Honest Review of The Cane Tiki Room

Most of the things posted to this feed aren’t reviews per se, but trip reports of my experience. There’s certainly some overlap in material but a review to me adds editorial content that is usually not present in my posts.

Mrs. Mai Tai and I stopped overnight in Paso Robles and had a later dinner at Cane Tiki Room which we visited once before. We enjoy the clean but well-done Polynesian decor, and the staff was just as friendly as last time and worked with us when we arrived early for our reservation. Music on a Friday night was upbeat and funky, 1970s-leaning and anything retro is fine with me. I didn’t love the spam musubi which was a bit overdone and covered with sauce, but the dumplings, teriyaki chicken bowl, and lettuce cups were wonderful.

On our last visit I liked most of the cocktails except the Mai Tai which used a funny tasting mac nut orgeat. They’ve since reformulated with traditional orgeat but are now using Planteray Original Dark as the base rum, with an optional float of Goslings. Original Dark is not a strongly flavored rum and contains a lot of sugar, so the Mai Tai was not a punchy as I think it ought to be – and Goslings wouldn’t have helped as it too is not a strong flavor. With a Mai Tai you want to taste the rum and it really ought to be more rum forward.

I also tried a Chartreuse Swizzle that was much better with some tangy pineapple juice working well with the herbal liqueur. Mrs. Mai Tai had the Lapu Lapu, a juicy but well-balanced cocktail that is served in a cute pig mug (none for sale at the time, though). These two good cocktails were well-executed.

We also visited Eleven Twenty Two, a speakeasy owned by the same restaurant group, and were completely blown away by the drinks. While this serves a more cocktail-oriented clientele, the price of the drinks were comparable. So, we know the group can make better cocktails and while we understand the people coming to a tiki restaurant are different than a speakeasy we do think Cane Tiki Room should be doing better with the cocktails and especially the Mai Tai. Use a punchier rum, please, even if you have to bump the price up from $14.

Having some great cocktail options in a town known for wine tourism isn’t too shabby, and with the friendly staff and full menu Cane Tiki Room is a great option for more than just a quick stop for tropical drinks.

Recipe: Piña Verde

I heard about this cocktail on the Bartender at Large podcast, hosted by Erick Castro-Diaz. Erick created this Piña Colada riff years ago when developing the menu for his bar Polite Provisions. It essentially replaces the light rum with the bold and flavorful Chartreuse liqueur.

The flavors really come through well, thanks in part to the 55% ABV of Green Chartreuse. The coconut and pineapple really compliment the herbal notes coming from the liqueur. It’s fantastic.

Piña Verde by Erick Castro-Diaz
½ oz Lime Juice
1½ oz Pineapple Juice
¾ oz Cream of Coconut
1½ oz Green Chartreuse
Shake with crushed ice and garnish with a mint sprig

It kind of makes me sad to discover this cocktail, since now more than ever I’ll be having fears of future FOMO as I whittle down my supplies of Green Chartreuse that is now so difficult to procure.

Daisy de Santiago

Another Yellow Chartreuse cocktail, though when I looked up the recipe online it varied wildly. This one is basically the Smuggler’s Cove version and I chose to keep this with Cuban roots by using Havana Club 3 as the base rum.

I found this to be light and refreshing, though in the future I probably would up the Chartreuse a bit.

Daisy de Santiago
1 oz Seltzer
1 oz Lime Juice
¼ oz Demerara Syrup
½ oz Yellow Chartreuse
1½ oz Havana Club Rum
Shake with crushed ice. Garnish with mint sprig.

No mint, but this was still very nice to drink. I think adding the seltzer before pouring the shaken contents is an improvement from the published recipe.

Almost Famous with Yellow Chartreuse

I picked up a bottle of Yellow Chartreuse in London for just £44. It has a lower ABV than Green Chartreuse and is sweeter and less herbal, but it is still unmistakably a Chartreuse.

The cocktail is Almost Famous by Laura Bishop of Navy Strength in Seattle, published in Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails by Shannon Mustipher (2019). It is a riff on the Naked & Famous, replacing the Mezcal with an Overproof Jamaica Rum. This easy to make and flavorful cocktail leans boozy but I really enjoyed the complex flavors of the two liqueurs and of course the backbone from the Jamaica Rum.

Almost Famous by Laura Bishop
1 oz Lime Juice
1 oz Aperol
1 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 oz Overproof Jamaica Rum (Rum Fire)
Shake with ice and strain into a coupe

Yellow and Green Chartreuse

Forbidden Island 17th Anniversary

Had a nice afternoon in Alameda on the patio with friends celebrating Forbidden Island‘s 17th anniversary. The seminal third wave tiki bar opened in 2006 and is still going strong. We were glad to stay outdoors in prep for our upcoming trip to the British Isles, so we missed the live Hawaiian music and hula from Haopinaka, but it sounded great from afar.

Fun on the patio at Forbidden Island

Copalli rum was doing free tastings of their line, including a delightful cask strength expression picked by Forbidden Island. Copalli was present in one of my cocktails, the nicely balanced Copalli Chartreuse Swizzle. Gotta order those Chartreuse cocktails when the French herbal liqueur is still actually available.

Following up from my visit a few weeks back I tried the Infinite Coastline again, but this time with the robust and boozy Rum Fire Jamaica Rum. I really liked this and it remains, as they say, easy drinking.

Nice to see so many familiar faces celebrating Forbidden Island’s birthday – and there was even cake. Congrats to Michael Thanos and all the staff who keep FI going strong.

Nuclear Daiquiri

There were some discussions of this cocktail online this week and so I took at run at it. I tweaked the original recipe by lowering the Green Chartreuse a little and definitely going for a heavy pour of John D. Taylor Falernnum that is not as bold as the Falernum syrup used in the original version of the cocktail.

¾ oz Lime Juice
¾ oz John D. Taylor Falernum (heavy pour)
½ oz Green Chartreuse
1 oz Wray & Nephew Overproof Jamaica Rum
Shake with ice cubes and strain

This was just right for me. Enough of the Chartreuse to taste, but not enough to overwhelm. But it works very nicely with the bold Wray & Nephew rum.

Champs-Élysées Cocktail with Green Chartreuse

Did a little exploring through some classic cocktail recipes from Faith Hingey‘s book Classic Cocktails Done Well last night. After trying a Gold Rush (always a favorite) and a Sazerac (just okay) I finished with the Champs-Élysées. Unfortunately the Green Chartreuse seemed a little overpowering, so that I couldn’t even really taste the Cognac.

Champs-Élysées
½ oz Lemon Juice
¼ oz Simple Syrup
½ oz Green Chartreuse
2 oz Cognac
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Stir with ice and strain

I was so lucky to find this 375 ml bottle of Chartreuse before it became allocated and impossible to find.