SanFrancisco – Page 6 – The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai

September 2, 2024February 2, 2025

San Francisco Rum Festival 2024 Recap

The San Francisco Rum Festival returned to SOMArts Cultural Center and filled the venue with rum producers from across the globe. Sunday of Labor Day Weekend meant that rum was flowing freely, especially during a sort of happy hour portion later in the day called DaiquiriMANIA where many of the vendors offered Daiquiri cocktails to allow attendees to sample the rum in a cocktail. This portion was accompanied by a DJ playing mostly 80s hits and was a good option when more “casual rum fans” enter the building. This was an interesting idea I hope they revisit, and I got a truly excellent Passion Fruit Vanilla Daiquiri made by Tiki Lindy at the Myrtle Bank Jamaica rum table.

Being an experienced rum drinker, I skipped a lot of the tables and focused on things new to me. I made a beeline to the Worthy Park table to taste their wonderful new Overproof expression, finding it to be a good middle ground option between market leader Wray Overproof and cult king Rum Fire. Speaking of overproof, Oakland’s Wright & Brown had several expressions and I found their unaged Overproof to be an excellent rum that shows this style of rum doesn’t always have to be Jamaican. I also finally got to taste El Dorado’s High Ester expression, a total flavor bomb that was right up my alley. Lemon Hart’s 151 has been reformulated and tastes great.

In terms of Industry news, it sounds like Rhum Barbancourt’s availability issues will be remedied in the coming months, perfect if you’ve looking for their amazing unaged Haitian Proof expression. Similarly, Saint Benevolence mentioned they’re made some improvements to their aging program that should see their amazing Aged Rum Clairin to be more available soon as well. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like the distribution situation for Diamond Reserve rums is going any better, which is too bad because they’re great cocktail rums.

I attended a couple of the educational sessions with Kate Perry and Arminder Randhawa. The first was a blind test of expressions from Perry’s La Maison & Vellier product line. These are mostly high end limited expressions from countries rare to find in America, such as Shakara rum from Thailand and various limited editions from Transcontinental Rum Line, and being not so familiar with the line I did poorly at guessing (I had a great time drinking great rum, though). A second session provided compare and contrast opportunities with rum samples comparing cane vs. molasses, still type, and aging type. This was super informative and I’d love to see this come back next year.

The patio featured a couple vendors plus Doc Parks and Julio Palacios serving some of Parks’ always amazing cocktails. This rum festival continues to be a highlight of the year and a great opportunity for anyone looking to learn more about rum.

September 1, 2024September 10, 2024

Rum Congress at SF Rum Fest

The education-oriented Rum Congress was added to the San Francisco Rum Festival this year, offering deep dives into everyone’s favorite spirit. Rum Fest is returning to SOMArts Cultural Center this year.

Most of the sessions were hosted by a rum brand, with flowing samples provided. Plus, Rums of Puerto Rico had a series of cocktails after each session that featured a variety of Puerto Rican rums. These ranged from simple spritzers to a delicious rum punch.

I presented a session with Rum Wonk Matt Pietrek called Rums of the Mai Tai – Secrets Revealed. This covered the evolution of rums in the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai, with deep dives on the original J. Wray & Nephew 17, the rums of the original Hawaiian Mai Tai, and the 1950s era Martinique rhum. We had a receptive audience that asked detailed follow-up questions, and the Rum Fest staff had a great visual setup for slides. Thanks to Sam for the photos.

Other sessions included Pietrek and Alexander Gabriele discussing some details of Navy Rum and the new Planteray Mister Fogg rum, then both signed copies of their new book on the subject. Gabriele also presented a session about the West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados. Rum Champion Bryan Inman led a session about French rhum including reps and samples from Rhum Barbancourt. The last session was very loose but still enjoyable as Rum Lab’s Fede Hernandez led a session talking about Puerto Rican rums in tiki cocktails.

This was supposed to be my “dry” day at Rum Fest but it was anything but. It sounds like the team is interested in trying to make Rum Congress an ongoing component of the event. If this kind of event appeals to you, leave a comment with what kind of sessions you’d like to see in the future.

August 26, 2024August 26, 2024

Trader Vic’s Tiki Tai Treasure Hunt Crawl

The second event of Trader Vic’s 90th Anniversary weekend started off with a reception for three-day passholders. We had a reception in the Captain’s Cabin room and were treated to a Mai Tai and a half ounce pour of Appleton 17 Legend Rum. Where Trader Vic’s found three bottles of this I’ll never know, but it was nice to try this fabulous rum once again. Some bites were also part of this reception.

For anyone willing to participate, Trader Vic’s provided a map of nearby tiki bars. You were encouraged to visit these bars and have a featured cocktail that payed homage to Trader Vic’s cocktails of the past. For those not on the three day pass that would start at Vic’s with a cocktail. For teams able to get through all eight locations, they could upload a photo of their stamped map to possibly win a prize.

The participating bars were Smuggler’s Cove, Pagan Idol, Zombie Village, and Last Rites in San Francisco, plus Alameda’s Forbidden Island, and Kon-Tiki and The Barbary in Oakland. These were good choices, though Last Rites tries to pretend they’re not a tiki bar, and The Barbary isn’t tiki either but at least the owners are former Vic’s bartenders.

We heard Smuggler’s Cove was opening early for passholders, so Lyfted over and entered the doors at 4:08 pm to find four empty seats at the bar, practically unheard of. I totally loved the Eastern Sour riff that used fresh lime and orange along with quality Jamaica rums. I also had the Cove’s legendary Mai Tai.

Our next stop was Zombie Village right at opening where we enjoyed the Kapua Swizzle and Mrs. Mai Tai’s favorite the Coco Pandan. After some socializing we headed over to Pagan Idol and loved their Fogcutter riff called the Apple Crank. I really dug this, and also had an excellent Jungle Bird. We took a break for dinner across the street at Cafe Tiramisu.

We were starting to run out of steam, and regretting not sharing more of the cocktails. We finished at The Barbary, a bar new to all of us that has a tropical and nautical vibe. We liked the decor, though it was really warm inside. But none of really enjoyed the cocktails, with the off-menu Mai Tai being pretty terrible.

A salute to the teams who completed all the stops. This was a fun event that once again demonstrated the respect and admiration the various tiki bars have for each other and how Trader Vic’s remains the beating heart of the genre.

August 18, 2024August 18, 2024

San Francisco Rum Festival and Congress Presentation

Coming on August 31, I’ll be presenting at the San Francisco Rum Festival and Congress alongside Matt Pietrek of RumWonk.com and CocktailWonk.com fame. Our seminar covers rums of the Mai Tai, including some historical details rarely seen or discussed.

Rums of the Mai Tai – Secrets Revealed

Few cocktails highlight rum better than the Mai Tai, the king of tiki cocktails and created by Trader Vic 80 years ago. Join Kevin Crossman and Matt Pietrek for a look at the evolution of the rums used in the Mai Tai through the decades, including deep dives into historic rum expressions.

“NOTE: These sessions are restricted to Rum Congress (Aug 31st) ticket holders and require an additional $ to attend. Very Limited seats available – ORDER HERE“

July 30, 2024July 30, 2024

Disco Banana Dip

It isn’t just a fabulous cocktail, one of our favorites. It comes with a Banana Chip and you can use the cocktail as a dip!

Our drinks on Saturday at Zombie Village were just as great as we’ve come to expect, including that blended Disco Banana with cinnamon and potent rums. The place was medium busy around 9:30 and in addition to the Disco Banana Mrs. Mai Tai also had the Coco Pandan that comes with an ube popsicle.

Meanwhile, I tried the Over the Garden Wall from the seasonal cocktail menu. This has Indonesian rum, elderflower, absinthe, coconut, citrus, and spice. I will say this leaned very close to being too spicy hot for me, but overall I liked the complex flavors. It was pretty good, but I should have ordered the Disco Banana.

July 29, 2024July 29, 2024

The World’s Dirtiest Tiki Bar

Like clockwork, every five years it is time to revisit Hawaii West, a dirty tiki bar near the border of North Beach and Chinatown in San Francisco. This venue has a long history but the years have not been kind, so much so that even experienced tikiphiles have never heard of this place. Part dive bar, part tiki bar – this is definitely not the bar for everyone.

We entered at 9:00 pm on a Friday to find the place dimly lit and a mature lady sitting alone at the bar watching TV and having a snack. An awkward pause ensued. The staring contest ended when I asked if she worked here, at which point she dropped her fork and worked her way back behind the bar. I scanned the back bar, trying not to focus on the softcore photo prominently displayed back behind the bar. I also looked for a menu, missing the large sign off at the end of the bar.

The good thing about being on the Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai is that few bars won’t know how to make one, especially one with a few tikis scattered around. The orange and red cocktail soon appeared I handed the lady a twenty. Just $8 came back, meaning that this Mai Tai was only a couple bucks cheaper than the world class Mai Tai at Smuggler’s Cove – but Hawaii West is a place that seems like it was from a different universe. As grenadine laden Mai Tais go, I’ll have to admit it wasn’t half bad.

A trio of young people entered and must be semi regulars, chatting with the bartender. While waiting for our Lyft, we found that the toilet wouldn’t flush and reminding us our friend had a bad bathroom experience on our last visit. Reading the Yelp reviews, it appears food is sometimes available here which strikes me as … unappetizing.

I don’t object to tiki dive bars that appeal to a local clientele, such as with Trad’r Sam across town. Though, I’m not sure who Hawaii West is for.

July 28, 2024July 28, 2024

Bamboo Hut Revisited

We were in San Francisco’s North Beach on Friday for an evening of bar hopping and dinner, including a stop at Bamboo Hut right at opening. Described as a neighborhood tiki bar, Bamboo Hut has been around since 2000 and proudly avoids the trappings of the craft cocktail movement that are embraced by many of the Bay Area’s tiki bars.

The cocktail menu was refreshed in 2019 to be a little bit more upscale, including a 1944 Mai Tai. Back then they used Real McCoy rum from Barbados, but now the featured rums are Planteray 5 Barbados and Zaya (both with added sugar). Three people in our group ordered the Mai Tai and none of us were particularly impressed, each citing weird flavors from the rum or orgeat. At $15 this is not a good deal compared to other Mai Tais in the City.

We had a better time with some other drinks, including the Surfin’ Monkey which is a blended banana daiquiri style cocktail that has a lot of flavor and actually wasn’t totally over-sweet. The Zombie was served in a Hurricane glass but did feature some spicy notes that we like in a Zombie.

Inside the music was reggae and the service was quite efficient and pretty welcoming as well. This place can turn very clubby later in the evening if that’s your thing. We did enjoy the vintage tiki head that dates from the 1940s but as a neighborhood bar immersive decor isn’t really what Bamboo Hut is going for.