SKY Waikīkī

SKY Waikīkī occupies the nineteenth floor at 2270 Kalākaua Avenue, with an open-air deck over the middle of Waikīkī and a view running along the beach to Diamond Head. It operates as a raw bar and lounge earlier in the evening and shifts towards nightlife later, with a bar list that has carried the same three non-alcoholic cocktails long enough for them to count as fixtures rather than specials.

The drinks are better built than a rooftop bar's reputation would suggest. Dawn Patrol is made on a pineapple jalapeño shrub — a shrub being a vinegar-based fruit syrup, a technique that predates refrigeration and is one of the few reliable ways to give a drink without alcohol the sharp, mouth-watering quality that carries a cocktail. Vinegar supplies acidity of a different character to citrus, rounder and more persistent, and the jalapeño adds capsaicin heat, so the drink finishes long and dry rather than sweet. Hapai Happiness works a similar problem from another angle, using yuzu syrup for a floral, more aromatic citrus than lemon or lime, cut with basil for a herbaceous top note. Over the Pali completes the three. Between them they cover sharp, aromatic and long, which is more range than most bars manage with a spirit in hand.

The hours matter as much as the drinks. Honolulu's alcohol-free venues almost all close by seven or eight in the evening — the kava rooms and cafés that make up most of this guide are daytime businesses — which leaves a genuine gap for a night out. SKY runs 4pm to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 4pm to 2am on Friday and Saturday, so along with Ground Level Lounge and Vintage Books it is one of the few places in the city where somebody who is not drinking can stay out as late as everyone else. Being a rooftop, it is also the rare Waikīkī room where the view rather than the bar is the reason to be there, which changes the social maths for a table that is not drinking.