Post #640075 by pablus on Mon, Jun 11, 2012 10:41 AM

Sunset Tiki Party TWO, is the brainchild of Dean Hurst's crew "The Left Coast Bartender's Guild" here in Tampa Bay. First of all, they are deadly serious about their cocktails and this crew of 30 plus Bartenders could fit in anywhere. They know their stuff and like any good cocktailians - they are eager to learn more.

So with that as the foundation of this post, I just want to ramble on a bit about this party and its possible implications for what we've discussed here for a few years in posts like "Is Tiki Dying" or "Is Tiki Mainstream" or other observations on the "culture."

500 or so, mostly hardbodies, all being served classic rum cocktails by bartenders who slaved like dogs. I'd say the average age was 27. Most of the girls - I mean, people - I leered at - I mean, talked to - we're of that age.
That was the foundation of this event, although I did witness many in very elegant island-wear - most were in 7 square inches of clothing - if that.

However, they did something a bit different because the leadership of the LCBG knows the culture as we've defined it here at TC. They invited many Tiki Central veterans to, for lack of a better description at this point, hold their hands and walk them into their first real tiki time.

martiki was the guest of honor and held court in his Tiki 101 seminar where he tried to lay the groundwork for their future cocktail endeavors.

Onya Birri led Stolen Idols and they started out with their beautiful exotica bringing everyone into that blissful state of beachness.

Myself and kanekila and Ken Kanaka played our Crazed Mugs music with a 6 piece band and did our style of Tiki Music and then The Intoxicators - with Tiki Goob laying down the foundation of sky-splitting surf music - rocked them into a frenzy.

Jeff Chouinard had some of his fabulous palm carvings there and was even working on a carving. Dean Arscott had some great artwork there.

bongofury and Mickee were there enjoying the vibe and bringing the aloha and there were other TC people there as well, both new and venerable.

Many rum brands had hospitality rooms set up.

Nothing different to us really. Most of us have been to events like this.
The thing that set this apart was the fact that this event was probably the first exposure to tiki stuff at all for 90 percent of the crowd.

There's no way to compare it to walking into the Mai Kai, and I don't expect that many of them ever will do that or really "get it" in regards to creating a paradise illusion in a certain room or building. However that's not the point of this post.

I've asked some of the people in attendance there to weigh in on what they thought about using this paradigm, mainly "a big rum party with tiki elements as centerstage" and to see if it's something that will create more opportunities for the tiki scene as we've defined it, to pull people from the mainstream and keep tiki bars alive and hold them to higher standards.

I feel it would benefit us all to see that happen in regards to music and cocktails, and introducing some elements of the atmosphere.

Anyway - "the kids" were all very gracious in complimenting us and the other musicians. We were gratified to play for them, even throughout the night as I strolled around with the uke. Lots of attentive people and the Zacapa folks even handed me a bottle of their finest rum as a gift.