The best mai tais in NYC

At this East Village bar, every cocktail comes in a signature, delightfully kitschy mug. Even better: For $5 extra, you can keep it. As the menu boasts, the Mai Tai is the “king” of all tiki drinks, and Otto’s version features three different rums, fresh lime juice and a plastic monkey, of course.

No craft cocktails here. This Carroll Gardens institution keeps its Mai Tai simple: pineapple, rum and amaretto. But for only $7, you can easily treat yourself to two or three. There’s even an outdoor patio to get you in the Polynesian spirit.

The cocktails alone at the Williamsburg waterfront bar could coax aficionados from their habitual perches, but it’s the transporting staging that seals the deal—a fever-dream vision of Central America that owner Leif Young Huckman says takes its inspiration from Spanish-colonial cathedrals, Art Nouveau parlor rooms and the sailor’s flophouse that existed on this site in the 1800s. To be fully seduced, try the Mai Tai mixed with five different kinds of spiced rums, topped with orgeat syrup and splash of lime.

In a mystic-cool space fitting for such bartender worship—rigged with Indio candles, cathedral-pew booths and a golden tin ceiling imprinted with crosses, imbibe on the Mia Tia, a riff on a mai tai made with mescal, rum, lime, orgeat and curaçao—and head for the breezy, tree-filled, salsa-soundtracked patio out back. You’ll feel less like you’re in central Brooklyn and more like you’re in Central America.