Post #737716 by Tiki_Koro on Thu, Feb 19, 2015 9:59 AM

I appreciate the warm welcome and encouragement I've received from other members, and I will give this another chance. I will also make an introduction over at the Ohana forum.

AceExplorer, I can tell I touched a nerve, and I sincerely appreciate your impassioned defense of Aku Aku. I would hate to see it ever close, but it will not last long if my experience happens to be the norm. My attempt at brevity didn't work, so I will provide more context to why I think Aku falls short. First, the good. Aku has a great vibe. It's small (very important), well-decorated, plays great music, and serves their drinks in appropriate mugs, which is a lot to ask for in a town where most bars serve drinks in plastic. I had high hopes coming in, and the first drink did not disappoint. The Aku version of the Fu Manchu was a delicious ginger concoction that doesn't come close to the 1947 recipe in Remixed, and, personally, I don't mind that at all! While I won't knock the original until I've tried it, I'm pretty sure I would prefer the Aku version over just about any drink with creme de menthe.

Then I asked for a Navy Grog, and I did this, in part, with the intent of testing the bartenders. I also happen to love a good Navy Grog, especially The Ancient Mariner! From my experience, the hallmark of a great tiki bar is the staff's knowledge of tiki drink classics and their history. I wanted to see if the bartenders showed a personal interest in tiki culture, or if they were just trained to prepare the menu. I was hoping to be asked which style of Navy Grog, Donn Beach or Trader Vic. I would have been fine with a generic take with rum, grapefruit, and lime juices (like what I get at Tambu). And if the bartender said he had never heard of it and gave me the chance to talk about it, I would have enjoyed the conversation.

There was really only one wrong answer, and he gave it: "Navy Gron? We don't do that. Here's the menu." Besides the obvious ignorance of the word "grog" in a tiki bar, he displayed a terrible sense of hospitality. AceExplorer got one thing right, I am a bartender (see my forthcoming intro on the Ohana page), though not a competitor with Aku. If anyone at my bar asked for a drink I did not know, my first response is NEVER "here's the menu." I would have taken the opportunity to figure out what the guest wanted and how I can deliver as best I can. I ask guests all the time to describe a drink in question, and I would then either attempt their request or, if I'm lacking a key ingredient, I'd suggest something similar that I can prepare. This was a missed opportunity by a bartender who was simply uninterested in his guests and preferred to converse with his coworker. It only got worse when I looked at the menu, asked for a Mai Tai, and was served a drink that was heavily Myer's Dark forward. As was mentioned above by another post, the bartenders at Aku free-pour with great generosity, and the result is a lack of balance.

That was my experience in greater detail, and I would love nothing else than to know it was an anomaly, perhaps someone from the neighboring Stardust filling in for a sick bartender.