Post #752967 by Swanky on Thu, Oct 22, 2015 6:26 AM

On 2015-10-21 14:34, P. Duarte wrote:
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.

Food coloring, no. I doubt they are worried about anyone reverse engineering their drink in that way. They do on occasion make large batches of their most popular drinks. At Hukilau, they have a very rare occurrence of almost the entire dinner show of 250 coming into Molokai at the same time and ordering several rounds. And this happens for 2 or 3 dinner shows and after, etc. And they also make large batches for catering events. But at Hukilau they will mix a large batch of Rum Barrels for sure to keep up. They have over 10 years of records so they know what to expect and plan ahead to keep up.

They do have a lot of their syrups and juices sourced. With the changing availability of falernum over the decades, having it made, along with other items, locally, keeps their drinks consistent.