Post #752927 by P. Duarte on Wed, Oct 21, 2015 2:34 PM

AceExplorer, that's actually a good point. Although highly unlikely.

First off, in a mass produced, high-volume environment, adding color to a drink just seems like another 'unnecessary' step - that is, unless the Mai-Kai 'batch up' a certain portion of a particular drink beforehand in order to save pour time; food coloring could be added in at that point. For example, many establishments have a 'Zombie mix' ready to go, rather than having to add those extra 4 persnickety ingredients to make the drink. Secondly, adding food coloring to a drink seems very anti-tiki and does not reflect the best practices and methods used in tiki's heyday. However, I may be wrong; this is just an assumption.

Does anyone else have an informed opinion on this? For example, is it known that the Mai-Kai batches up any (non-alcoholic) portions of their drinks? It would seem counterintuitive that if they did (for example, to throw bartenders off from really knowing what they are pouring), to actually add food coloring also. I have not heard or known of any tiki 'practices' whereby food coloring is routinely added to drinks.