If you’re a connoisseur of classic cocktails like myself you’ve probably noticed things have improved a great deal in the past few years. More bars are making drinks with fresh juices, using premium liquor, and cocktail ingredients that have fallen out of favor are being rediscovered. This is especially true in urban areas with a large population of gourmands like San Francisco or New York. Even the vodka craze finally seems to be waning, as new gins, whiskies, and rums are being introduced with greater frequency. Now one can go into any number of bars or restaurants in a big city and get a great cocktail. Yet, years after publication of the first Grog Log by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, which unearthed recipes of tropical drinks from the classic tiki bars of the Polynesian Pop era of the 1940’s through the 1970s, it is still hard to get a great classic tropical cocktail in a bar. There are a few places in the U.S. where one can still find them: Trader Vic’s chain of restaurants, the Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale, and the Tiki-Ti in Los Angeles are some of the best places. Many new tiki bars have opened in the past decade but few have been able to make great tropical drinks. Why? Simply because you have to do three main things right (besides having the proper recipes) to serve great classic tropical drinks: use quality liquor and other ingredients, use fresh juices, and measure precisely. It is very difficult to do all three of these efficiently, especially when things get busy, and the older places like the Tiki-Ti that do it well have perfected their methods over many years.
I am happy to report that there is a new bar that makes perfect tropical drinks, that lives up to the standards that the Tiki-Ti and other classic bars set some time ago.
Last weekend a new tiki bar opened up in Alameda, called the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge. It is a beautiful bar, made to look like a classic 1960s tiki bar, chock full of bamboo, hanging lamps, glass floats, puffer fish, tapa cloth, and tikis of course. There is plenty to look at inside because, like the classic tiki bars of the old days, every nook and cranny is filled with something Polynesian. As I overheard someone say last weekend at the grand opening, “This place is all about the details”. The atmosphere is dark (as it should be) with indirect lighting, hanging lamps, and candles providing the illumination. The music is a mix of exotica, lounge, country-western, rockabilly, soul, big band, and popular music from the 1940s through the 1960s, played from the CD jukebox at a soft volume so it can be heard but it doesn’t drown out one’s conversation.
There is a large drink menu with several classic cocktails from original bars like La Floridita in Havana, Trader Vic’s, and Don the Beachcomber’s, and many fine examples of contemporary tropical drinks as well. All of the drinks are made with the finest ingredients, fresh juices, and with garnishes such as fresh mint, pineapple, and special Forbidden Island swizzle sticks. All the drinks I drank over the weekend, and I had several, were excellent, well-balanced, and not too sweet. They varied in strength from light to incredibly strong (the Zombie). Somehow they managed to pull it off: making delicious tropical drinks with precise measurement of fine liquor, exotic mixers, and fresh juices, without running out of everything, or letting the quality suffer when things got busy. And things got very busy indeed on the grand opening Saturday evening. A line started forming as the bar reached a capacity crowd at 6:00, and by 8:00 there was a line down around the corner of the block.
They also serve an assortment of deep-fried goodies such as sweet potato fries and seafood.
All Bay Area folks are urged to check Forbidden Island out, and visitors to the area should not miss it. I’ll see you there!
1304 Lincoln Ave.
Alameda, CA 94501
p: (510) 749-0332
Forbidden Island Web Site
Forbidden Island on Critiki for full description, photos, reviews, and more
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