Laka Lono Rum Club

Laka Lono Rum Club is the Old Market's tiki room, on Howard Street a few doors from Clio, with the full carved-and-thatched treatment and a rum list to match. It opens at 3pm every day, which is earlier than almost anything else in this guide, and runs to midnight or 2am depending on the night.

This directory has now recommended tiki bars in four separate cities, and the reason is worth stating once properly. A tiki drink is an assembly: fresh lime and pineapple, house-made orgeat and falernum, allspice and cinnamon, several syrups, a great deal of ice and an elaborate garnish. The rum is one line in a recipe of eight. Take the spirit out of a martini and there is nothing left; take it out of a mai tai and you still have a complicated, aromatic, properly built drink. The format is structurally the most forgiving in cocktail bartending for anyone not drinking.

The presentation does the rest of the work. In a room where every drink arrives in carved wood or ceramic under a canopy of mint and fruit, nobody can tell what is in your glass, and nobody asks. That invisibility is not a small thing.

One caution that applies here specifically, and that a good tiki bar will answer immediately: falernum and some house syrups are traditionally made with rum as a preservative. Anyone abstaining completely should ask which components in a given build are alcohol-based rather than assuming a drink described as alcohol-free contains none at all.

Graded three: the spirit-free offer is attested by Omaha's curated local drinks guide but no named build could be verified for this listing, so none is recorded.