A big heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you for your letters, your support, your hugs, your smiles, and your perseverance. We are proud to announce that the 12 am closing restrictions at Wang Chung’s have been lifted!
A huge mahalo to the BEST defense attorney in Honolulu, Marcus L. Landsberg IV (http://www.facebook.com/HawaiiLawyer, 808-230-7419). When life throws lemons at you, let Marcus throw them back. I could not have had better counsel to represent and defend us. Please check out his page and blog, LIKE it, and call him if you need help. He is thorough, honest, Jewish, and kick ass. I’m going to make him a trading card!!!
And again, thank you for making the smallest bar in Waikiki, feel like the biggest in Aloha spirit. Wang Chung’s will hit 2 years in September!
Much love and aloha,
Dan, Cory, Henry, Bud

We’re happy to join in on the monthly online cocktail party known as Mixology Monday. This month’s MxMo is hosted by Filip of Adventures in Cocktails, and the theme he chose for is Niche Spirits.

“June’s theme will be “favorite niche spirit”, so any cocktail where the base ingredient is not bourbon, gin, rum, rye, tequila, vodka etc would qualify. So whether you choose Mezcal or Armagnac get creative and showcase your favorite niche spirit.”

Here at Wang Chung’s, we’re going to feature an original cocktail created by one of our patrons, Tanis. It’s called “Ginger ‘N Maryann” and features Domaine de Canton Liqueur.

“Domaine de Canton is a French ginger liqueur comprised of eau-de-vie and VSOP and XO Grande Champagne Cognacs, which themselves are produced using fresh Tahitian vanilla beans, Provencal honey and Tunisian ginseng. The ginger comes from fresh, baby Vietnamese ginger and adds a wonderful flavor profile to this unique distilled spirit.”

We love using fresh juices here, and what makes this cocktail unique is that we use locally fresh squeezed pineapple juice from Govinda’s. If you’ve never tried fresh squeezed pineapple juice, the first thing you’ll immediately notice is the thickness followed by the super fresh flavor. It’s a life-changing experience. Govinda squeezes gallons and gallons of fresh juices every morning, and do so without pasteurization and destroying the flavors and enzymes in the juices. The shelf-life is so much shorter, but the flavor and quality is unbeatable, and we all deserve to have the best tasting cocktails with the best ingredients!

Ginger ‘N Maryann

• 1.5 oz Domaine de Canton Liqueur
• 1.5 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• top with fresh pineapple juice
• Serve over ice in Collins glass, garnish with lime wedge

Wang Chung’s is featured in 大人のハワイ (Luxury Hawaii) magazine! It’s a Japanese only magazine published only in Japan covering all the cool must do things in Hawaii. We had our second reader/customer this past weekend!

Wang Chung's featured in Japanese Mag: Otano no Hawaii

*Rough* translation: KARAOKE is now a universal language, universal entertainment … even if do not speak English, communicating with a song in karaoke, heating up, things like friends with local people is a common sight. Meanwhile, enjoy the communication with locals, a heartwarming, but here is small karaoke bar. There in a back alley just behind the Hyatt Waikiki, a little fat you are ready to fill it also put 10 people. But the owner, if it sticks to the narrow, in that close physical distance between the audience, “neighbor” If you wait for people to take the senses, and. And if you become happy by singing and drinking, can become friends right away. Humanity, all, right next door poultry (laughs). Good to be true that we shop if they connected. Here, incidentally, the pace of bringing food OK. ‘from dry, even in fried steak in pizza is OK. Nature and each” of them, divided between the Department of neighbors or beer spread even more from that conversation, I become very good friends and all harmonious bar.

Ginger beer is one of the only beers I can drink since I’m allergic to alcohol. And it’s oh so delicious. Spicy and refreshing without the overt sweetness of ginger ale.

The easiest way we’ve found to integrate homemade ginger beer at the bar is with a rich ginger syrup. Thanks to @kyleepuu and @codyonizuka for supplying several pounds of local hawaiian ginger from the farmer’s market. Look at the GARGANTUAN ginger modeling with @kyleepuu!

We’ll start with making the rich ginger syrup with a recipe courtesy of @dr_joey, Hawaii’s legendary mixologist:

For the ginger syrup reduction:

• 1 lb of fresh local hawaiian ginger
• 32 oz sugar
• 64 oz water

Wash the ginger with the skin on, and then pound the ginger with a textured meat mallet to open up the ginger. Place the ginger under a broiler until golden brown and then flip to get both sides the same way. This caramelizes the sugars in the ginger for extraction during the reduction process.

Once the ginger is nicely toasted, bring the 64 oz of water to a boil, and add the sugar and ginger. Keep it boiling until the mixture reduces to 32 oz. Strain out the ginger and let cool, place the cooled ginger syrup into a clean bottle and keep refrigerated.

The added depth of caramelized ginger makes this rich ginger syrup AMAZING!

To make the ginger beer, we add 1 oz of rich ginger syrup to 3 oz of soda water.

And one of the perfect drinks to showcase ginger beer is the Dark ‘N Stormy.

Dark ‘N Stormy

• 2 oz Gosling’s Black Seal Rum
• Top with ginger beer
• Top with a dash of Angostura Bitters
• Served over ice with a lime wedge

“It’s my life. It’s now or never.” -Bon Jovi

Our favorite six-foot-twelve, singin’, drink slingin’ bartender, Bud League, is flying out to Dallas, TX tonight to try out for the X-Factor this week!

When I first met Bud, I asked him what his passions were, and he said he always loved singing and entertaining. He’s certainly charmed and captured the hearts of many patrons here at Wang Chung’s with his smooth vocals, easy going attitude and charismatic smile.

Here’s a video directed by Kris Fitzgerald and Nicholas Lam that was filmed here at Wang Chung’s earlier in the year.

His friends and ohana here in Hawaii are sending him a lots of love and support — along with a several boxes of Chocolate Covered Macamadia Nuts. We’re cheering for you Bud!