Post #769725 by Swanky on Thu, Oct 27, 2016 11:16 AM

Speaking of it, I have been considering what happens to my sites when I pass, and made me wonder about TC. If Hanford stops maintaining it, or just does not pay the registration or hosting, this site and all its info would vanish forever. That would be a big loss. Is there any way to put TC into some sort of protected space where many people are able to keep it alive for a long time instead of just one guy?

How many cool websites are now gone? Remember Vegas Vic and all the fantastic music he shared? Gone.

Cataloging just Locating Tiki into a book would be a big volume.

But the answer has been the same for 6 years or more: The age of discovery is almost completely over. Newly opened Tiki bars may outnumber vintage ones by now, and if not, they will soon. We have perhaps unfortunately (IMO) resurrected Tiki. And all these new places and the things involving them are not what TC is designed for. Facebook is. New mugs sell more and for more money than vintage. People are waiting in long lines and paying too much money for a Trader Sam's mug. The Tiki Farm Mai-Kai decanter sells for more than the original.

We are in the new Tiki era and TC is the Encyclopedia America of the old Tiki reawakening era.

Look at Hukilau last year. A bunch of the presentations were Tiki old timers talking about how they got started in it and got here today. The history of the history of people of Tiki in the new era.

I was a bit set back by recent visitors to my home bar and how very casual they were about the bar and the cocktails. Then I realized these were people who got into Tiki in the last few years and every Tiki bar they have been to were pretty much new, well decorated and served great drinks. And they dissed the old places and really had no room for them. They'd rather go to Lost Lake than Hala Kahiki.

We turned the corner. It is now a post-revival era. And as much as Sven did for TC and the old revival era, Jeff Berry is who made this new era possible. If he had not published Donn's recipes and made very good Tiki drinks available for all, new bars would not have opened. At least not when they did. Since then many of us have Donn's recipes and they would have come out probably, but we may not have been as aware without Jeff's work.

I'm active on a lot of social media and come here a few times a day, but only ever look at a few things. Locating Tiki and some cocktail and vintage stuff threads.

I'm also kind of over the new Tiki era. It may seem like the ultimate end of what we've been doing here to resurrect Tiki and have new, awesome Tiki bars opening all over the country serving great cocktails, but not to me. I have little interest in new Tiki bars. Glad that my friends and doing great business and are really coming into a big time with their products and services. Heck, I'd rather have a good Old Fashioned than a good Tiki drink.

But I still wish I'd gone ahead and opened the Headhunter Lounge in 2004 in downtown Knoxville and be an old guard Tiki bar now. Would have really changed my life. But maybe it's best the way it is.