Post #719492 by mattchicago on Sat, Jun 7, 2014 9:06 AM

Ahoy!

I am new to tiki culture, but feel myself being pulled in this direction.

I came to Tiki via a rather roundabout path - especially considering that my decorating aesthetic is Victorian and I don't expose myself to direct sunlight if I can in any way avoid it.

Last year, while idly browsing the food and drink section at a big chain bookstore, I randomly discovered Ted Haigh's "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails". As a history geek, who regularly hosted dinner parties for friends, this appealed to me immensely - I would make such drinks as the Aviation, the Golden Dawn, the Monkey Gland, the Corpse Reviver, as an opportunity to bring back the feel of the 1920s.

Problem was, I generally preferred beer. My liquor collection was meagre - about ten dusty and neglected bottles, some a decade old, in a cabinet inconveniently located behind an armchair. A few bottles of absinthe (which appealed to the Victorian eccentric in me), a bottle of gin with Queen Victoria's face on the label (same reason), one bourbon and one scotch, and some industrial-grade vodka. Rum? That would be a half-empty handle of Bacardi bought during the Bush administration and a bottle of Malibu Coconut (I have always loved coconut).

I started to expand my collection, with the goal of making the recipes from Doctor Cocktail's book. Next time I hosted a dinner for friends, we drank Aviations (gin + lemon + maraschino + violet), and I spoke of how the drink dated to 1916, and was named for the hottest new technology of the day, but the ingredient that made it sky blue had been unobtainable for the last forty years or so, until this book had inspired a movement that brought it back... etcetera.

I maintained a list of all the different cocktails I'd made (current count is one hundred and thirty). As I got deeper into mixology, my collection of spirits quickly outgrew its inconveniently-located cabinet.

So I built a bar, using the sort of wire shelving you see in restaurant kitchens or internet startups' server rooms. The work surface is a hardwood shelf, sold as part of this modular shelving system; on the lower level is a mini-fridge (for citrus, syrups, juices, vermouth, etc.). Upwards of sixty bottles of liquor and fifteen bottles of bitters now crowd its every horizontal surface.

As I progressed through the recipes, something unexpected started to become clear: I was someone who enjoyed rum-based and tropical drinks most of all.

My first Mai Tai attempt was awful - I had the wrong kind of rum (that decade-old Bacardi), a seven-dollar bottle of bottom-shelf curacao, and some nasty chemical goop that masqueraded as orgeat; and I didn't even know what a Mai Tai was supposed to taste like, having only once had something by that name in a chain restaurant. I made a Singapore Sling shortly after and this turned out a bit better; and after picking up some more rums I was able to mix a perfectly adequate Planter's Punch.

In February of this year, my neighbourhood cocktail bar - Scofflaw, considered one of the best in the country, is three blocks from my house - hosted a tiki night. That's not their usual style; this was just one of a series of themed events they did to drum up business and lift patrons' spirits during the coldest, bleakest winter that Chicago has experienced in the past hundred years.

I had a Pusser's Painkiller, topped with grated nutmeg, and a Zombie, garnished with mint and a cinnamon stick. Both were phenomenally good - and that's how I came to discover I liked tiki drinks.

By the end of the week, I'd made a Jungle Bird at home (finally finding a use for that nearly-full bottle of Campari I had), and a Voyager, and a Zombie. I bought some proper orgeat, falernum, Don's Mix. I made Hurricanes, Royal Bermuda Yacht Clubs, Ancient Mariner (Navy Grog), lots and lots of Painkillers (for I have always loved coconut). I went back to the Mai Tai and made it again, properly, with rhum agricole.

In April during a software engineers' conference, Groupon hosted an after-party and recruiting event. They rented out the main room of Three Dots and a Dash, a new tiki bar in Chicago that you've all probably heard of - the place is fantastic, with two hundred rums, a menu of a dozen or so tiki drinks (classic and modern), served in traditional mugs. Every drink was heavily garnished with flowers and fruit; beautiful waitresses in floral dresses circulated constantly with platters of crab rangoon, steamed buns, pork ribs, satay...

I returned to three dots a week ago, after attending a meeting downtown, and had a banana daiquiri, garnished with half a banana cut to resemble a dolphin, studded with leaves as fins.

So, now I'm hooked; I'm a tiki addict. I have friends from out of town arriving in a few weeks, and hope to be a good host by artfully presenting a well-made drink.

I bought Beachbum Berry's books yesterday (Kindle edition) and will be working my way through the recipes. I've ordered some tiki mugs from awesomedrinks.com. I have thirteen kinds of rum now, a top-shelf curacao, pineapple and passionfruit juice, fresh bananas and oranges and blueberries; and now it's time to start researching, mixing, and tasting.

[ Edited by: mattchicago 2014-06-07 09:54 ]