How to Navigate Oʻahu’s Latest Speakeasy

Don’t be fooled.

The (literally) underground cocktail bar beneath the AC Hotel in Downtown Honolulu was designed to be deceptive. With such a cool story and that polished brass, red velvet prohibition-era interior one may think they have arrived, and you’d be right.

But, wait, there’s more.

Below are step-by-step instructions on how to access and order drinks inside the speakeasy at Yours Truly, a bar within a bar. However, in order to understand its conception we need to start with the building’s history.

Yours Truly is one of Honolulu’s newest speakeasies.
Photo: Courtesy of AC Hotel By Marriott Honolulu/Yours Truly

After Hawai’i was annexed in 1897 the U.S. Postal Service delivered a cease and desist letter to a man printing postcards featuring his photographs of “exotic Hawai’i.” Unafraid, the man continued printing his postcards illegally out of his curio shop located beneath a street in Downtown Honolulu. Today, when you arrive at the AC Hotel, instead of proceeding to the lobby you can descend the stairs to your left and happen upon what appears to be an old post office, with mailboxes still intact, but what is really the old curio shop. This is Yours Truly, an ode to its original owner and an unmalicious middle finger to the post office.

How to find and navigate the speakeasy at Yours Truly

Upon entering the “post office” a greeter at the door will give you a password. No need to rush. The initial bar you have entered has many reasons to stay, like the guy behind the counter lighting Green Chartreuse on fire (a hard-to-get spirit the bar stockpiled when the Monks decided last year to start producing less).

Once you’ve figured out how and where to use the password—we don’t want to ruin all the fun—you’ll arrive in a hidden room just off the main bar decorated in tiki trinkets with tables plastered with the very postcards printed onsite in the early 1900s. Grab a 2024 postcard stacked on top of the table featuring an illustrated drink menu, check off your order and write down your last name and mailbox number. Then go mail your postcard.

The same host who gave you the password will have also given you a mailbox key. Open your box, slide the postcard in and lock it up. When your box lights up yellow you’ll know the bartender has received your order. When the box lights up green your cocktail is ready to retrieve.

The cocktails

It’s all about the cocktails at Yours Truly in Downtown Honolulu.
Photo: Courtesy of AC Hotel By Marriott Honolulu/Yours Truly

There is not one, but two distinct cocktail menus for each of the bars at Yours Truly. The staff of mixologists produces a wellspring of fantastical and thoughtful cocktails that range from the spirit forward to the coconut creamy, refreshing, fruity and beyond, crawling through Chinatown once a week to scavenge the markets for inspiration and producing all their own syrups, juice blends, seasonings and garnishes. Nothing is off limits.

The tiki mugs in the speakeasy alone are worth the visit. Take the Tita Bun, which comes in a sharp-fanged cobra mug. The cocktail is intended to reflect the fierce female warriors on the island. Or the P. Sherman, a chai-spiced, rum espresso martini served in a laid-back, sunglasses-wearing-turtle mug

More of a straight-up or on the rocks kind of drinker? Purchase a bottle of your favorite spirit and store it here in one of the bottle lockers. Then, every time you return you can grab your bottle and for a small corkage fee have the bartender pour a round for you and your friends.