Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto
Last night Yvonne and I visited Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto and Tiki Bar at Disney’s Polynesian Resort. We started off the evening with dinner (and for me, a bit of late-night French press coffee) at the nearby Kona Café, then headed to Trader Sam’s just after 8:00 PM when kids were no longer permitted in the bar.
We had never been to Trader Sam’s before, nor had we heard much about it, so we were pretty surprised when it turned out to be a lot like the old Adventurers Club. The bartenders and wait staff would perform little mini-shows, wear goofy costumes, and use a variety of different props depending on what drinks you purchased, and every now and then various events would happen within the bar. At one point my barstool sank slowly to the ground, and the bartender gave me a child’s booster seat to compensate. The bar was dark and cosy and had lots of kitschy in-theme decorations lining the walls to enhance the mood. The place was quite small, and quite packed. Many of the patrons there seemed to know the place well, acting along with the various mini-shows whenever they occurred.
The drinks at the bar were interesting – there was one five-shot drink served in a large Nautilus submarine-shaped gravy bowl, and others served in ceramic shrunken heads and the like. They were quite strong (made with multiple shots of rum, in some cases Bacardi 151), and of course expensive.
Overall it was a neat place to visit.
So Grog is in the name….did they serve that? Or kava as it was also called in Fiji? Made from the ground up root of a pepper plant, tastes like/looks of dirty water but will numb your mouth….apparently an acquired taste but slowly gaining popularity outside of the South Pacific!
They do feature something called Sam’s Gorilla Grog on the Trader Sam’s menu, though I am not sure if it is legit Fijian grog. I found a recipe for it online… might be worth trying to replicate it.