Hula Hula Cocktail

Saturday, July 13, 2024 

Before cocktail hour with Dale I had a cigar out in the garage.

Finished up the Blue Hawaiian I had left over from the other night. 

                     

Brought back the Hula Hula Cocktail. It's been a while. 

                      

This is one of the first tiki drinks I made on my own because it's so simple. It's one part gin (I used Bombay Sapphire), one part orange curacao, and one part orange juice. 

Dale and I listened to Ultra Lounge Vol. 1: Mondo Exotica. It's been a while since I've listened to this one. It's one of the best Exotica samplers out there. 

Also listened to Ultra Lounge: Hey Bartender which is lots of fun as well. 

Spring Break 2022 - Trader John's Mai Tai

Monday, April 4, 2022

Spring Break 2022! Made it to Phoenix and were picked up at PHX by Dianne and Brenda. It's great to be here and great to see some sunshine. 

It looked like what you see above just before we left for the airport this morning. 

Shortly after getting to John and Dianne's we headed over to Brenda and Irv's new place to help them move their TV.

They've got a corner unit which is nice because they get two patios.

Irv had this bottle of Bombay Sapphire on the counter. Sweet how he labeled it. I made a gin and tonic when we got back to John and Dianne's. 

The gin and tonic along with the warm weather all felt very summery.

Felt so nice to be outside in shorts and short sleeves.

John offered to make me a Trader Vic's Mai Tai. Of course I accepted. 

John grilled salmon and romaine lettuce for dinner. It was all very divine. He's a master of the grill. 

Here's the recipe John used for the Mai Tai with a few modifications he made. We'll call his version Trader John's Mai Tai.

Martinis In the Mermaid Lounge

Wasn't in the mood for rum last night so I went ahead and drank a couple martinis in the Mermaid Lounge. I know gin isn't the most tropical sounding libation but I think the drink at least photographed well with the tiki mugs and mermaids. 

I listened to Arthur Lyman while sipping away. After doing a google search on him I learned a number of facts:

1) He was born in the then U.S. territory of Hawaii on the island of Oahu in 1932.

2) He was born to a Hawaiian mother and a father of mixed Hawaiian, European, and Chinese descent.

3) His father was very strict and locked him in a closet every day after school with the task of playing along to Benny Goodman 78 rpm records to learn good music and become a better musician.

4) He was known as the king of lounge music.

5) In the 1950s and 1960s his group was instrumental in mainstreaming the pseudo-Polynesian style of music that would later come to be known as exotica.

6) He played the vibes and marimba.

I've had a few of his recordings that I've listened to frequently over the past 10 years and am particularly fond of The Very Best of Arthur Lyman - The Sensual Sounds of Exotica. One of my most favorite tracks is Yellow Bird which was one of the selections of a music series I taught back in the day at a public school. I remember the kids liking it quite a bit as well. When I discovered exotica music and specifically Arthur Lyman, Yellow Bird felt like a familiar friend in a style of music I was unfamiliar with. Yellow Bird was actually Lyman's highest charting single. The song originally came from Haiti and it reached the #4 position on the Billboard music charts in July of 1961.