Tag: Jamaicarum

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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.

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Dr Funk Rum Asylum with Worthy Park Rum

The sea of World Cup revelers parted for the afternoon on Sunday, offering the opportunity for Dr Funk to hold their quarterly Rum Asylum rum club meeting. The featured rum this time was Worthy Park from Jamaica, one of our favorites.

The session included tasting seven of Worthy Park’s expressions, including the recent 12 year bottle that is by no means inexpensive so that was a true treat. We also had a nice presentation from a couple Worthy Park reps and some informative Q&A.

Each Rum Asylum meet up includes a cocktail made with the featured rum, and the Dr Funk did a great job with the spicy and rummy Going Bananas. This worked great with the fruit notes that Overproof Jamaican rums are known for.

Several people completed the third level of the Rum Asylum to great applause and those of us in level II took a group photo. There were also several people joining for the first time and starting their rum lists as well. The rum community in San Jose is building nicely thanks to Dr Funk’s fine collection and these fun and informative Rum Asylum meetups.

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Probitas Green Label Rum

Probitas is a blended rum collaboration between Barbados’ Foursquare distillery and Hampden Estate from Jamaica, known as Veritas outside the United States. The expression launched a few years ago as a 47% “white” rum with bolder flavors than your typical light rum. The blend of Coffey still rum from Barbados and a bit of Hampden’s heavy pot still rum means it has a ton of flavor in a daiquiri or other cocktails where you want the rum to be clear or nearly so.

The collaboration now has a second “green label” expression that is going after the dark rum category for use in Painkillers and Planters Punches. The new expression contains caramel coloring which provides color of course but also imparts flavor you’d recognize from many Demerara rums. The green bottle also ups the ABV to a hearty 57%! There’s no “Navy Strength” moniker here but it clearly is playing in the same area. It’s around $35-40 at retail.

This tastes pretty nice neat in a glass, though that caramel does come at you right up front. It works much better in cocktails including a Mai Tai where the higher ABV means you get a ton of flavor even as the drink dilutes. This seems like it would work best in cocktails without a ton of heavy ingredients, as it isn’t quite as funky as something like Smith & Cross Jamaica rum or rich as dark rums like Worthy Park 109 or Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof.

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Checking in at Bamboo Hut

Every once in a while we find ourselves in North Beach with maybe some time to kill or looking for a cocktail escape. Such was the case on Saturday after an amazing dumpling and noodle focused dinner at nearby China Live but where I was underwhelmed by the cocktails. So we walked over to Bamboo Hut shortly after opening to see if the cocktail game would get any better.

Bamboo Hut is one of the most unusual tiki bars in San Francisco in that it doesn’t fit in neat boxes. It opened in 1997, so it predates the craft cocktail renaissance, but also doesn’t have the longevity of Trad’r Sam or Tonga Room. The interior has some nice decorative elements, including a large tiki mask that dates from the 1940s, yet also has a lot cheap wall tikis and neon signage that plays up the party bar aspect that’s a focus for the venture. The cocktail program was refreshed in 2019 and there are some craft elements, but the nods of “blow job shots” and frozen drinks again leans in the party vibe. So it is sort of good, sort of not for the average tiki aficionado.

Who Burnt My Banana Bread

There was no issue with our service though, as the bartender was quite personable and even indulged in a called rum Mai Tai, where I asked for Planteray Xaymaca to replace the Planteray 5 Year that I don’t enjoy. The Mai Tai turned out pretty good, way better than the limey one I had at China Live. Even better was Mrs. Mai Tai’s Who Burnt My Banana Bread, which is a sweet old fashioned style drink with walnut bitters and liqueur, banana liqueur, spiced rum, and served smoked. It was actually really great.

This place has a party vibe later in the evenings including DJs playing anything but tropical, but the island vibes and music during our visit were very nice. All of which means that Bamboo Hut isn’t bad at all and I’d be more than willing to pre-game here anytime.

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Tweaks at The Tonga Room

Mrs. Mai Tai and I had a couple weekend events in San Francisco so made it a staycation weekend. We started with dinner at The Tonga Room on Friday, arriving for our reservation right at opening and seated along the water with our friends Kristi and Jessie.

There are still a lot of things going well here, including our server Ahmad who was on top of everything during our visit. I was interested in checking the Mai Tai, but knowing that they batch some of the drinks I thought I’d take Ahmad on his prompt that the bartenders can make anything by asking for a Mai Tai with Jamaican rum rather than the Bacardi rums it normally comes with. I figured they would use Appleton Signature which is exactly what they used, with the overall result being just okay but at least they didn’t charge me anything extra.

I had better luck with the full-flavored Fair Fashioned, featuring rye and amaro. Mrs. Mai Tai’s Seafoam Espresso Martini was also pretty good as was the vodka-based Divine Dragon. The Tropical Itch was also quite good, the kind of complex tiki drink that Tonga sometimes had trouble with in the past. The revised cocktail menu sadly drops the Tiki Hunter which was our favorite, though the prices are a little lower than last time. A little.

We did enjoy the food as well, though my Ahi Tuna came in sort of a weird format with little chips. The side of fried rice was a good addition and the tiki noodles and veggie duo featured large portions.

The fine for jumping into the pool remains $1000, though more notably the cover charge for when the band plays is now $20 per person, which we feel is far too much and hence why we come early before they start at 7:00. We felt the overall value was a little better than our last visit, and though it is still very expensive here for dinner and drinks we do enjoy visiting for the vibe, decor, and frequent thunderstorms.

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Denizen 8 Year Jamaican Rum Wanderer Series

Issued as part of Denizen’s new Wanderer Series, this is a Single Origin Jamaican Rum aged for eight years and finished in Port Casks for three months. Issued at 54% ABV, this new premium rum is a limited edition of four different pot/column still rums and does come with a higher cost than Denizen’s standard rum lineup.

The Port Cask is doing some really funky things to this rum, and I didn’t really find it to be particularly representative of a Jamaican rum. The bottle says “single origin” but said origin isn’t really provided. Comparing this to something like Dr. Bird, another Jamaican rum with wine cask aging, I feel like more of the Jamaican notes are lost and are replaced with some industrial solvent notes that reminded me of a Haitian Clairin. I don’t get any of the banana or caramel notes supposedly attributed to this rum in the marketing materials.

I made this in a Mai Tai and while it wasn’t undrinkable, I did find it lacking compared to Denizen’s other rums.