Mai Tai (War Time Cocktails, 1935-45)

Smith’s Union Bar, Honolulu

Strolling into Honolulu’s Smith’s Union Bar, just a few miles away from the military docks and ports of 1941 Pearl Harbor, one is greeted by a calmer, more open-area bar than the other dark seedy places on the block. But it was not exactly family friendly — really more of a sailor’s paradise where navy personnel came to let off steam after long periods at sea. It was frequented by many a sailor of the USS Arizona which sank due to the bombing, killing 1,117 men. The bar still exists today, but serves mostly a younger “college” crowd.

Popular cocktails that would have been ordered at the time were the Sidecar, Gin Rickey, Between the Sheets (or Maiden’s Prayer), Grasshopper, Dubonnet cocktail, Bloody Mary, French 57, the 1941 Moscow Mule and the Mai Tai.

Mai Tai Recipe

• 2 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. orange curacao
• 1/2 oz. Orgeat syrup
• 1/4 oz. simple syrup
• Pineapple and cherry for garnish

Dry shake w/o ice and pour into an ice-filled old-fashioned glass. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and maraschino cherry.

Our glasses and copper mugs be raised to the 2,403 people who were lost eighty years ago this December 7 and its 1,178 survivors who were marked for life, as well as to all who lost their lives during, or as a result of, military service to our country.