City Council makes the Mai Tai Oakland’s drink

The Oakland City Council has given Oakland its own official cocktail — shaken, on ice. The Mai Tai. 

Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, who introduced the resolution at Tuesday’s meeting, said the council’s move honors the city’s history as a center of entertainment, culture, arts, food and drink. 

“Honoring and supporting our innovators helps expand our economy, jobs, opportunity, revenue, and uplifts the community,” Kaplan said.

According to the resolution,  the Mai Tai was invented by Victor J. “Trader Vic” Bergeron, an Oakland restaurateur, at the original Trader Vic’s restaurant on San Pablo Avenue and 65th street in Oakland. The restaurant opened in 1934. A decade later, while experimenting with tropical flavors for a cocktail, Bergeron developed what we know today as the Mai Tai, meaning “out of this world the best” in Tahitian.

According to Food & Wine, Bergeron helped popularize “tiki culture” in the 1950s and ’60s.  The restaurant was originally called Hinky Dinks but was changed to Trader Vic’s as it became more popular and the menu and decor became more tropical. The original drink combined Jamaican rum, lime, orgeat, orange curaçao and simple syrup, shaken with ice, according to Trader Vic’s Hospitality group.

Matthew Reagan, co-owner of Oakland tiki bar The Kon-Tiki said, “The Mai Tai has always been Oakland’s claim to cocktail fame. It’s great to see it getting the official recognition it deserves.” 

Shari Murphy, co-owner of Baggy’s by the Lake and Smitty’s Lounge, said, “It is an Oakland born drink and in my honest opinion, the perfect tiki drink.  We will no doubt see an increase in orders.”

David Weltin, owner of the Aloha Club , said the Mai Tai’s recognition probably won’t have an impact on the club, which is more of a tequila bar. “But Oakland is a wonderful place, and all news is good news.”

Trader Vic’s would open 25 locations throughout the U.S. and the world.  Although the original Oakland location closed, Trader Vic’s is in the process of opening a new location at Oakland International Airport, according to Trader Vic’s hospitality group.

“This is not only a piece of Oakland’s history,” Kaplan said, “but it is a piece of Oakland’s future.”

(Photo by Johnny Silvercloud, Flickr)

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