Mai tais on the Big Island worth sitting down for

A mai tai is rum, orange curaçao, orgeat, lime, and sometimes a lot of juice that has nothing to do with the original drink. On this island the glass is often an excuse to sit still at sunset. That is a good excuse. It is a bad reason to cross the island, or to pay resort prices when you are not already at the resort.

Two places are worth planning the evening around. A third is worth it only if your hotel is already on that beach.

Kona: Huggo’s On the Rocks

Huggo’s On the Rocks is at 75-5824 Kahakai Road in Kailua-Kona, on the lava in front of the original Huggo’s. The floor is sand. You order at the bar, you put your feet in that sand, and you watch the sun hit the water. Walk-in only. Live music most evenings. Happy hour is typically mid-afternoon, before the sunset seats fill.

This is the one I would tell a friend to do on a Kona night. The drink is a proper tropical mai tai, not a mixology thesis. The point is the chair. Eat something if you are staying — the fish tacos are the easy order — or go to dinner next door at Huggo’s if you want a table and a reservation.

Get there before sunset if that view is why you came. After dark it is a bar with a band, which is also fine, and a different evening.

Sleep in Kailua-Kona and you can walk, or close to it. Places to stay in Kailua-Kona.

Waikoloa: Lava Lava Beach Club

Lava Lava Beach Club is at 69-1081 Kuʻualiʻi Place, on ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay. Toes in the sand, a bigger operation than Huggo’s, live music on the beach from about 5:30 p.m. Happy hour runs early afternoon, before dinner. Dinner is the meal people book; the mai tai at the edge of the water is the part I would not skip if I were already in Waikoloa.

I would not drive up from Kona solely for the cocktail. I would stay on this coast if the beaches are the trip, and let the evening land here.

Places to stay in Waikoloa.

The resort glass, if you are already on the property

Brown’s Beach House at the Fairmont Orchid, and the beach bars at the Four Seasons Hualālai, serve a mai tai you are partly paying the view for. Order it if you are staying there or you are on that sand for the afternoon. Do not make it a reservation from Kona town. The rum will not be different enough to justify the drive, and the parking at those resorts is a small project of its own.

What I would skip

• A mai tai in a hotel lobby that faces a parking lot. You can do better in ten minutes at Huggo’s.
• Crossing to Hilo for a cocktail. Hilo’s evenings are quiet on purpose. Eat poke at Suisan at lunch and have a drink wherever you actually are.
• Collecting mai tais. One good sunset is the memory. Three watery ones is a headache at the volcano the next morning.

If you want the show with the drink

A luau is dinner, a mai tai, and a performance in one ticket, which is the right format if you want the evening handled for you. Luaus and evening shows out of Kona are the bookable version. I would still do Huggo’s on a different night, without a schedule.

Where I’d sleep

The evening is…	Sleep in
Huggo’s and a walkable dinner	Kailua-Kona
Lava Lava and the Kohala beaches	Waikoloa
The volcano, not a sunset bar	Hilo or Volcano

Which coast to pick in the first place is Kona or Hilo. The week that includes one real sunset and still sees the park is the 7-day itinerary.

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