by Mike Usinger on April 21st, 2021 at 2:17 PM
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One of the brilliant things about a great cocktail is the way it can have a magically transporting quality. Been lucky enough to have spent an hour or three lounging on the lawn of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana? If so, the first sip of a back-yard mojito can instantly take you back to a frozen-in-time world of ’57 Chevys, son cubano songs, and $10 Montecristo No. 2 cigars.
Remember that happy hour at Huggo’s open-air bar on Hawaii’s Big Island, where humpback whales breached in the distance as you watched transfixed with your toes in the sand? Mix up a Mai Tai, crank Gabby Pahinui’s “Ka Makani Ka’ili Aloha”, and suddenly you’re back at Huggo’s on the Rocks rather than stuck in your 410-square-foot Yaletown condo wishing desperately you’d sprung for a place with a balcony.