Tiki Takeover Thursday in Livermore

We visited Livermore’s Nightcaps at Rosetta a few times over the past year, but so far hadn’t made it out for their tiki themed Thursday cocktail menu. That was rectified when we met up with Bob and Julie who are locals and helped us through the menu. Nightcaps is the evening version of the Rosetta Roasting cafe, where coffee and cakes are met with small bites and cocktails.

The back half of Rosetta’s venue is dimly lit at night with lanterns and features several large tiki totems and artifacts, plus jade tiles and comfy booths to enjoy the exotica and mellow lounge music playing. It’s actually “more tiki” than a lot of places that people think of as a tiki bars, and the back room is quite isolated from the rest of the venue.

Mai Tai

The cocktails were great, starting with the Mai Tai that features rich, bold flavors. In a nice touch, the branded glass available for purchase features a word mark logo that appears suddenly depending on the light. I also tried the Jungle Bird that leans a little light on Campari and a bit heavier on the rum, which is precisely how I like it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mai Tai indulged with a couple creamy Grasshoppers, her newest obsession.

Several of the cocktails were elaborately garnished and we even got into the shared cocktail experience. The wait staff and bar team were super helpful in answering some questions, and while our party knows the team already, we saw the friendly vibe being share with other guests as well. Note that tiki drinks can usually be ordered any day of the week, so ask them if you come in on the weekends.

New Cocktails at Dr. Funk / Anchorman Trivia

We had a great time a couple weeks ago on back to back visits to Dr. Funk, first to check out the Monday trivia event which was the movie Anchorman. In a past life I used to have a podcast and blog about the Frat Pack so this was a seminal movie and one of my favorites. We finished second but I won the raffle for a bottle of Scotch (yes, you can say it… “I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly…”). This one was more sparsely attended than past events but lucky for us since it was the last night of the old Dr. Funk cocktail menu they were running specials on some of the drinks that were being dropped.

Jungle Bird

Dr. Funk’s new cocktail menu launched the next night, so we brought the family to give the drinks a try. I was especially interested in trying the revised Jungle Bird that dropped Cruzan Black Strap and is now using Worthy Park Select from Jamaica and so much better. The other new cocktails were well-received by the family including the Boozy Beachbum, Thai Chi, Espresso Oasis, and Myers’s Storm. The Lychee Luau was a little less sweet than when I sampled it during a preview, but it is still one that I recommend. And if you are looking for a Dr. Funk swizzle, you’ll have a hard time missing one.

During my visits I did take advantage of Tuesday’s all-day Happy Hour pricing to have the Mai Tai for only $12, plus a Hamilton White Stache Daiquiri off the Rum Asylum checklist. The DJ for this particular Tiki Tuesday was DJ Ship Rex who always provides an energetic set of vintage tunes.