Rum Barrel West

August 18, 2025

Quick Review

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We went to Rum Barrel as one of the last stops on our company’s first EU conference, with several colleagues joining. The experience was really neat, and the drinks were all well crafted. In leiu of a real “tiki bar” in the area, rum barrel was a blast that I’d be happy to visit in the future.

The Longer Version

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Key Info:

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• Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Date Visited: Apr 5, 2025
• Visited with: 8-10 colleagues

Our Visit:

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I met up with colleagues at rum barrel one night after our conference, they had been walking around the city and I arrived a bit ahead of time walking from the hotel. The bar is situated on the corner of a street, and was not particularly busy when we arrived. The group of us were sat at a long table, which ended up splitting the conversations between different groups along the table.

While we were wrapping up, the servers brought each of us a complementary portion of their house rum blend, which I’m sure was only done because of the large group size, but was a nice touch. Servers seemed excited when presenting the drinks, especially those with a fiery flare.

Most of the group choose Uber to get back to the hotel, but a colleague and I opted to walk back to grand centraal and take a ferry back to NDSM where our hotel was, and I have to admit its still quite amazing any time real public transit is available.

The Drinks

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I personally sampled Rum Barrel’s:

• Zombie (€27.50 ≈ $32)
• Mai-Tai (€15 ≈ $17.50)

Food

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We had already eaten dinner beforehand, but we sampled some of the bar snacks. The half of the table I was closer to ordered some croquettes, which were good.

Decor + Theming Elements

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Rum barrel’s decor was extremely minimal, outside of a few motif’s I would not consider there to be tiki theming. That said, the zombie’s were served in a ceramic skull, topped with flaming lime and sprinkled with cinnamon grounds to create a small fireball. Amongst our party there were 3 of them ordered, and every skull got full attention from our table (as well as those around us).

Despite not being a tiki bar really, the design was clean and everything was well thought out. The design was a lot more modern and up scale, and I think it worked for what it was going for.

Tiki Rating Table

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Placing Tiki bars in the table is a bit of a struggle for me, as I have two competing criteria in mind.

• The objective ratings of the drinks recieved, decor etc
• The subjective experience that we had that day, which often comes down to who was with me, the conversation we had etc.

Rum Barrel was awesome, but not really a tiki bar and that contributes to its lower ranking overall.