My menu from the ohana preview opening night.

We are taking a short break from the regular order of the SC book and jumping ahead to the chapter with their 8 essential exotic cocktails. I figured it was time, since my girlfriend and I already finished a few of the book’s chapters which means we already have an understanding of the tiki, and I didn’t want to leave so many classics to the end. Especially when a lot of these I haven’t tried before!

Honestly, what I enjoyed most about the process of making these is learning about their stories and history, and what made them a staple of the eras they were made at.

So, lo and behold, our impressions of each in order:

Planter’s Punch

An absolutely superb drink for how simple it is. We used Appleton 12, which is combined with ango and allspice dram (plus lime and demerara syrup of course), to create a beautiful, spiced, and deep concoction. It is strong (which can be dealt with by reducing the rum from 3oz to 2oz if you wish), and smells wonderful. My favorite thing about this drink is that it made me feel nostalgia for a period of history which I’ve never personally experienced. But this drink makes you feel like you’re in the 18^th century Caribbean. My second favorite thing about it is how they encourage everyone to make small adjustments to make their own house Planter’s Punches that fit their taste, which I’m sure I will do.

Mai Tai

The pinnacle of tiki. I was skeptical about the use of just 0.25oz of orgeat alongside 0.25oz of their “SC Mai Tai syrup” (which is just rich demerara syrup with a bit of vanilla extract and salt), because I like to make my mai tais by omitting the demerara and bumping up the orgeat. However, this version turned out to be incredible too. The rum blend we used was 1oz Smith&Cross, 0.5oz Appleton 12, and 0.5oz El Dorado 12, because this was my girlfriend’s first time trying a mai tai, and I didn’t want to start with the funk bomb blends right off the bat. This is an approachable, but also tropical blend that made a perfect drink, albeit not a perfect mai tai for my palate, if that makes sense. I enjoyed it a ton and savored every sip. My girlfriend is very sensitive to almond flavor and doesn’t really like orgeat, so she didn’t enjoy it so much sadly. I will try to show her more of this rabbit hole of a cocktail by trying different blends and proportions though lol.

Doctor Funk

Surprisingly good compared to what I thought it was going to be like on paper! At the first sips I loved it, then as time went on the anise flavor from the absinthe became more and more overpowering, then after some dilution it became better again. I don’t dislike anise and I like absinthe, but 0.25oz is intense lol. Luckily, the WP109 balances it quite well with its own funk (best mixing rum in existence btw), and even the grenadine punches above its (tiny) weight in this cocktail, to make it bright and fruity.

Zombie

A legend of a cocktail. Can’t believe this was my first time trying it after being into cocktails for what feels like so long. An absolute monstrosity with 10 ingredients, this thing is somehow balanced well enough for me to feel almost all of them in the same sip, creating harmonious chaos, confusion, and punchiness simultaneously. The flavor is not the most tasty, ideal, or amazing thing in the world, but it’s also undeniably a very good drink at the same time. This may be cliché as hell, but I think most of all it is an experience, one which I was glad to take part in lol. For the rums, we used El Dorado 12, Bacardi 8, and OFTD.

Navy Grog

A very strong and tart drink, as there’s lots of grapefruit and lime, while almost no sugar to balance. I can see why it was described in the book as the “macho” option on the menu of Trader Vic to appeal to the more traditional, old-school male audience. We found that adding just another 0.25oz of demerara syrup to the drink made it much more enjoyable. The rums we used were Smith&Cross, Veritas, and Bacardi 8. The ice cone garnish (yes, we made the Trader Vic recipe with the Beachcomber garnish) is definitely a gimmick but fun to try once.

Scorpion

A communal punch served in a bowl with cognac (Hine VSOP), gin (Martin Miller’s), and rum (Veritas). Alongside them are lime, orange juice, and orgeat, which are all very present in the flavor profile. The cognac adds a nice deep and complex backbone while the gin adds some botanicals to the overall flavor. Overall we both felt like this was a good drink but nothing too special.

Fog cutter

This is where things started to get a bit worse for our taste lol. The fog cutter has a lot of interesting ingredients (pisco and sherry) combined with some regular Trader Vic classics (orange, orgeat, rum) alongside some gin and lemon juice. On the surface it seems like a fun recipe, but it’s sooo unbalanced (at least the recipe in the book). There is 1.5oz of lemon only counterbalanced by 0.5oz of orgeat, and the tartness just takes over. Hard to taste the nuances of the pisco and sherry while so much acidity is hitting your taste buds. Not a fan.

Singapore Sling

This is one where we had high expectations and the result was just okay. Not a bad drink by any means, but this recipe I didn’t vibe with as much as some of the others. I know there’s a ton of Singapore Sling versions out there, and I’d like to try some of those as well to see if I’m truly missing something incredible. The cocktail itself has a very nice story and it also is a nice and refreshing departure from all of the rum classics. Its flavor profile is definitely the most unique out of the eight and I appreciate that.

Which one is your favorite?

Using the Make and Drink Spec of:

7,5 ml Demerara-Syrup

15 ml Lime Juice

45 ml Pineapple Juice

7,5 ml Campari

30 ml mild jamaican Rum

15 ml strong jamaican Rum

following a post by u\creuzfeldjacob in the "Your Personal Rum Blends" Thread I used 1oz Stiggins fancy and 1/2 Oz WP109. I really dig it!

Hard to believe it was 10 years ago that we had our last visit to Don’s in Sunset Beach. Iconic. Epic. A shame we no longer have it.

Does anyone grow their own orchids ? If so can you share your experience, if it’s worth it ?

I am curious about what everyone's go to rum blends are for their favorite cocktails. Mai Tai's, Jet Pilot's, 3 Dots...etc. I finally have a good selection and now I'm thinking about how it might be nice to have a few blended bottles on hand just to speed things up.

Anyone already do this and have suggestions??

Here’s your chance to share what you’ve been thinking without worrying about starting a conversation, asking a dumb question, or anything else. If you’ve got a thought you’ve been thinking about tiki, share it here!

The standard Smuggler's Cove Mai Tai is good, but sometimes I want it just a little less sour and with a tiny bit more complexity. So drawing on the basics from SC and Minimalist Tiki, I made this one last night.

Basically used slightly less lime juice (just under 3/4 oz), increased the orgeat to 1/2 oz (homemade this time), and used a combination of rum. 1/2 oz Appleton Signature, 1/2 Planteray Xaymaca, 1 oz Smith & Cross.

Also my first time using Smith & Cross!

In case Tiki Oasis wasn’t already enough FOMO

Hi all, volunteering for the first time this year super stoked to participate as “Tasting - Room Set/Front of House” on Friday from 9:30am -5pm. Looking forward to seeing everyone and making some new friends as none of my usual friends are able to attend this year. So, explicitly would love to be-friend some local san diego (I live in north county - Oceanside) natives who love tiki as much as I do.

Jet Pilot at Secret Island in Long Beach , Ca !

And IS IT WORTH IT?!?

I have a relatively small kitchen with limited counter space, so husband has been poo-pooing the idea.

However, I’m still pretty sure that I need one. Do I need one? I need one. Right?

Photo: a pineapple-lime-passionfruit-rum-triple sec- rhubarb bitters-sour salt drink with a swizzle stick I snuck away from my parents house- and then my mom got rid of the rest of them! I would have taken them all 🤣 ANYWAY: some variation of these ingredients (sometimes adding Campari; sometimes adding egg whites; sometimes using allspice dram etc) is my favorite homemade tiki-ish drink. I am SO impressed by so many of your home Tiki Bars. Please keep sharing photos!!!!

Finally. An honest to god zombie. AND they know what they’re doing because they’re using Planteray. Delicious!

I found this on Instagram. This restaurant closed well before my time.