Post #513814 by GatorRob on Sat, Feb 27, 2010 7:24 AM

Like everyone else said, thank you Sabu for starting this! Definitely a great thread in the making. And the best part, other than all this great eye candy, is this (and hopefully there will be a lot more of examples of this):

Silverline, I'm stoked that I can help you out in this case.

That's fantastic! Thanks Sabu!

Now as much as you serious mug collectors salivate over the rarest-of-the-rare ones, and I do too, when I look at old restaurant and bar photos, my eye often gravitates to the glassware that was used. Even in a tiki bar, maybe even more so in a classic tiki bar because of the savage-sophisticated contrast, just the right glassware can make the perfect presentation for a cocktail.

I searched high and low for the (then) elusive Derby Daiquiri glass from the Mai-Kai :down:

until I finally located one :down:

Fortunately some more later surfaced and are now in the hands of some appreciative collectors.

I'm still searching for this ribbed glass that was used in oh-so-many tiki bars and shows up in several of the menu pictures in this thread (this picture from Sabu's post - glass on left) :down:

It shows up on the tiki scene as early as the 1930s at Don the Beachcomber's in Hollywood (see lower right) :down:

And as late as 1990 :down:

Yes, there's a glass in that picture, trust me. :wink: You'd think with a glass that was in such widespread use over so many decades that it would be easy to find, but I still haven't located one. Jeff Berry has not seen one either and he's been looking for years. Does anyone have one in their collection? If so, do you know who made them? I've scanned many old drinkware catalogs and haven't found it. I did find this one :down:

and thought I'd finally located it, but having shown it to Kern Mattei (Mai-Kai manager), he's convinced it's not the same that they used, but it's awfully close. I'm pretty sure he's right because this one is rather thin and delicate and would not hold up at all to everyday use in a restaurant or bar. But then again, that may be why none are left... they all broke!