Unpopular Tiki Opinions

On 2018-06-04 10:58, Cammo wrote:
Excellent point. We went to Waikiki Beach last summer, supposedly the most expensive area, and it was incredibly cheap. We ate at the local's favorite places (just ask the guys on the beach) and hit ALL the free lagoon snorkeling in front of the big resorts up the coast. No-cover sunset luaus every night at the outside bars. Fireworks. Tiki torches. Incredible Hawaiian shirts. More Spam Musubi, please.

We spent less than 1/2 the money we expected. Best vacation ever.

Cool! I had a similarly good experience at Waikiki Beach and am totally ready to go back. The locals are very willing to give good advice and are proud of what their beautiful islands have to offer. They will get you into some beautiful backcountry areas and also tell you what tourist traps to avoid and which are worth seeing. And oh, the bars at Waikiki Beach, they offer some truly good cocktails from very talented bartenders.

If we love tiki so much, and tropical paradises, why not go to one of the sources more often?

Yeah, once you talk to the locals and ask them where the best beaches are for your kids, and the best Kalua Pork, and inquire about inexpensive Japanese food they treat you like Uncle Brah.

Every morning I'd go for a big walk and hit all the front lobbies of the biggest hotels for free coffee & snacks, sit around on their cushy chairs and watch the sun come up. Incredible vacation.

I always bring a book that was written in Hawaii; last time it was the first Charlie Chan book ever written, a vintage edition, I strolled over and read it at the Halekulani & in the lounge chairs at Lewer's - that's where Earl Derr Biggers actually wrote it. The action in the book takes place at the Royal Hawaiian next door, super easy to visit the locations. Incredible experience. Total cost of this part of the trip: $0.

Cammo, 100% with you, found inexpensive lodging 1 block in from the beach (behind the IMP) and also spent a day among the waterfront hotels. I outspent you though cuz we bought some drinks and snacks, spent some time in the rocking chairs on the waterfront lanai. It was a very cheap "world-class beach" day with Diamond Head as a backdrop. Was it relaxing and fun? Definitely, and memorable. The beaches are free and oh so awesome.

On 2018-06-04 11:25, AceExplorer wrote:
If we love tiki so much, and tropical paradises, why not go to one of the sources more often?

I'm not going to crap on people enjoying what they enjoy... more power to 'em... but I admit that I don't GET travelling for conventions. I attend (and even present at) the big anime convention in my city BECAUSE it's in my city and I'm already here. Maybe it's because my travel budget isn't huge to begin with so trips need planning and I have to make choices about where I go and why. I like to see things and do stuff. Again, more power to someone who loves conventions, but yeah, I'd honestly rather do Hawaii itself, for exactly the stated reason. That's the actual tropical paradise!

We could start a whole new thread on the pros and cons of attending events.

I've definitely learned a TON from attending the cons, found inspiration, met awesome and sincere people and made good friends. I happily made the commitment to build out a home bar whose scope allows me to make most of the recipes in the tiki books and drink apps and as much as a third to half the recipes in a number of non-tiki books and drink apps - it's currently a 500+ bottle bar. I'm no longer "new to the sport," so my views have changed a bit. Recently I have come to find that by the time I pay for fuel, food, lodging, and event tickets, I am staring in the face of a week in Hawaii (or even Europe) for two. That's created quite a dilemma for me, one which I have not been able to suppress lately. After 12 to 14 years in a row of attending a wonderful tiki event, I'm catching myself glancing in other directions more often because we know what is out there yet to be done and yet to be explored for darn near almost the same cost. Maybe all I need to do is break things up a bit.

This is truly an "unpopular tiki opinion" in my own mind because I love the events. I am an experienced traveler, explorer, adventurer, trip leader. I'm again hearing the call of the tropical and the exotic, and the roads less traveled. This is what floats my outrigger, lol, and I think I just need to scratch that particular itch because it's been too long between trips.

(Edited to fix a few typos and fix a phrase here-and-there)

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2018-06-05 06:38 ]

On 2018-06-04 23:05, EnchantedTikiGoth wrote:

On 2018-06-04 11:25, AceExplorer wrote:
If we love tiki so much, and tropical paradises, why not go to one of the sources more often?

I'm not going to crap on people enjoying what they enjoy... more power to 'em... but I admit that I don't GET travelling for conventions. I attend (and even present at) the big anime convention in my city BECAUSE it's in my city and I'm already here. Maybe it's because my travel budget isn't huge to begin with so trips need planning and I have to make choices about where I go and why. I like to see things and do stuff. Again, more power to someone who loves conventions, but yeah, I'd honestly rather do Hawaii itself, for exactly the stated reason. That's the actual tropical paradise!

I took out a personal loan (which i'm still paying off) in order to go to Tiki Oasis in 2012 and then squeezed in as much as i possibly could, including going home via Hawaii, in that same trip. Since then i re-borrowed that money and visited the US twice. Those three trips were the best times i've ever had in my life.I'm still paying off that initial loan and you know what? I don't give a fuck. I'm happy to pay for that until i die, and if i don't pay it back before i die, then the bank can sell my Tiki mugs and recoup their costs. I'd rather pay that loan off until i die and have done something i REALLY wanted to do, as opposed to 'trying' to save for it and never having done anything.
The point is, i'm into TIKI. I went to Tiki Oasis, The Hukilau and Luau At The Lake, because that is what i WANTED to see. Everything else was just a bonus. You go to Hawaii because you want a vacation in a tropical paradise. Tiki has nothing to do with that. If going on that holiday incorporates an interest of yours, then good for you.

On 2018-06-05 07:14, swizzle wrote:

The point is, i'm into TIKI. I went to Tiki Oasis, The Hukilau and Luau At The Lake, because that is what i WANTED to see. Everything else was just a bonus. You go to Hawaii because you want a vacation in a tropical paradise. Tiki has nothing to do with that. If going on that holiday incorporates an interest of yours, then good for you.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thinking about it more, I suppose one could compare it to my having gone to Disneyland several times over the last 15 years... Why go to Disneyland when you can just actually go to the places its based on? Tiki culture is different from visiting actual Polynesian islands, and if you're more into Tiki culture and everything Tiki culture represents for you, then yeah, go for it!

On 2018-06-05 10:40, EnchantedTikiGoth wrote:
Yeah, that makes sense. Thinking about it more, I suppose one could compare it to my having gone to Disneyland several times over the last 15 years... Why go to Disneyland when you can just actually go to the places its based on? Tiki culture is different from visiting actual Polynesian islands, and if you're more into Tiki culture and everything Tiki culture represents for you, then yeah, go for it!

Some good points have been made. But my perspective is "Hawaii" versus "same sort of tiki event(s) a number of years in a row." Mixing it up by visiting a bit of some of the purported roots of tiki is something not to be missed because you get such different and great experiences for your bucks. I'm talking about straying from what could be a rut. It's a whole different magnitude of experience (if you don't encounter travel hell in airports and hotels, lol...)

Dick Dale has absolutely nothing to do with mid-century Polynesian Pop, and should be banned from Tiki bars, along with all surf instrumentals in general.

I like Ernest Hemingway more as a larger-than-life character than I do as an author. I read "For Whom the Bell Tolls" last summer, it was long and over-written. It's also unpopular that I consider Hemingway "Tiki"

I've always thought of Hemingway as a cheap ripoff of Rudyard Kipling; especially his Soldiers Three period. (Kipling wasn't
Tiki, but Robert Louis Stevenson sure was!)

I was especially sure Ernie was lifting Kipling stories after seeing a well-thumbed full collection of his work still sitting on Hemingway's library shelf in Cuba.

On 2018-06-06 17:10, MrBaliHai wrote:
Dick Dale has absolutely nothing to do with mid-century Polynesian Pop, and should be banned from Tiki bars, along with all surf instrumentals in general.

i love this topic because it so tongue in cheek...you don't know if the people are being facetious or if they are serious......

i love dick dale...when he was young with the big clip on gold earring in beach party movies all the way to now with his ponytail etc...

i think the spirit of tiki and surf music blended in the 90's when we would all group up as a kindred subculture of rockabilly, garage, las vegas grind, (dare i say...swing), lounge, and of course...tiki

it all kinda went together back then

....keep the faith baby

Ahem..,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWyyx43sBzQ

...and of course...

Just throw away your faded cotton “Hawaiian” shirts. Really, they look terrible. Get some good ones.

nothing says tiki like the ventures grinding out an instrumental version of 'spooky'...

On 2018-06-01 18:54, swizzle wrote:
The Philippines and Indonesia are not part of Oceania at all and PNG is technically part of Melanesia, not Polynesia.

Hawaii is not in the South Pacific too

On 2018-04-29 08:05, EnchantedTikiGoth wrote:

On 2018-04-29 07:19, tikitube wrote:
Tiki culture will always mean different things to different people, depending on how they were introduced to it and what kind of regular presence it has in their lives.

Yep... It was Disney what brung me to the dance, so my sense of Tiki for me is very much rooted in the Enchanted Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, Adventureland aesthetic, dappled with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea because I'm even more of a fan of Jules Verne and Victorian Sci-Fi than I am of Tiki. Coming from that angle brings in mermaids and pirates and monsters and other fantastical things... For me, places like Typhoon Lagoon and Weeki Wachi Springs and movies like King Kong have more to do with what makes Tiki appealing to me than does burlesque and hot rods, even though none of those things are strictly Tiki themselves. But all that said, I can recognize that there is a core of what Tiki is that serves as my reference point. I'm well aware that I'm shambling about more in Tiki's fuzzy edges.

I totally agree. For me, Disney is also a big reason I was attracted to tiki.

Have you seen Tokyo Disney Sea? From the videos I've seen, Its a Jules Verne / Victorian Sci-Fi lovers dream.

[ Edited by: joefla70 2018-06-14 10:32 ]

On 2018-06-14 10:15, joefla70 wrote:
Have you seen Tokyo Disney Sea? From the videos I've seen, Its a Jules Verne / Victorian Sci-Fi lovers dream.

Many have said that it is one of the best parks on the planet. It's on my list of places to visit. I do not know if there is any tropical or tiki there.

Long Beach CA sure missed out by not getting that park built here on the US mainland.

On 2018-06-14 10:15, joefla70 wrote:
Have you seen Tokyo Disney Sea? From the videos I've seen, Its a Jules Verne / Victorian Sci-Fi lovers dream.

Heck yeah! I went to Japan in 2009... Tokyo DisneySea is freakin' AMAZING. The Jules Verne content is found in Mysterious Island, which is based on Nemo's base in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and has both the 20,000 Leagues ride and Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, which are tied for my favourite Disney attractions ever. The other rides and areas of the park are nothing to sneeze at either, all centred on the theme of the adventure inherent to exploration. My other favourite ride there is Sindbad's Storybook Voyage, which has a heck of an earworm for a song.

There's no Tiki content to speak of though. The equivalent to Adventureland in DisneySea is Lost River Delta, which has an import of Anaheim's and Paris' Indiana Jones rides (both of them). For anything Tiki you have to go over to Tokyo Disneyland, which has a version of the Enchanted Tiki Room with Stitch raiding the show and a version of the Jungle Cruise that has more of a serious story to it. Tokyo is that one-off case where the "second gate" park actually outshines the "magic kingdom" park. My wife has never been to Japan so we're saving up to go in the next year or two, and if it wasn't for her never having been there, I'd probably skip Tokyo Disneyland altogether and just do DisneySea now that I've done it once already.

On 2018-06-04 05:30, AceExplorer wrote:
What you spend on a 5-day tiki con can buy you a week in Hawaii if you know how to shop airfare and lodging.

Very true. Or a month in Southeast Asia

Compared to breast bars twin peaks, tilted kilt etc , hooters is very mild. Shorts and tank tops. Even in the heart of Dixie and UTAH no one cares.

On 2018-06-04 08:57, Cutcarefullyplayloud wrote:
Unpopular opinion: The scantily clad waitresses at the Mai Kai make me not want to go. I don't want a tiki version of Hooters.

The Exotica revival was kick-started by an industrial-noise musician/prankster/Neo-Nazi* named Boyd Rice who played Martin Denny and Les Baxter LPs over the PA system before his concerts.

*-The "opinion" part of of this statement has to do with whether or not Boyd Rice was/is an actual Neo-Nazi, the rest is factual. Boyd also co-owned a Tiki bar in Denver back in the 90s, and was an acolyte of Anton LeVay.

Tiki is alive and well; it's this forum that's dead.

Those who refrain from exuding The Aloha Spirit should refrain from wearing Aloha shirts, especially in a Tiki environment.

Unpopular opinion: this forum really isn't that dead. Its far, far more active than any other forum I go on for any other subject. I don't see it being any less active than any of the Facebook groups I'm on, which also average only a few posts a day.

On 2018-06-16 13:40, MrBaliHai wrote:
The Exotica revival was kick-started by an industrial-noise musician/prankster/Neo-Nazi* named Boyd Rice who played Martin Denny and Les Baxter LPs over the PA system before his concerts.

*-The "opinion" part of of this statement has to do with whether or not Boyd Rice was/is an actual Neo-Nazi, the rest is factual. Boyd also co-owned a Tiki bar in Denver back in the 90s, and was an acolyte of Anton LeVay.

Unpopular or not, I'm of the opinion that Boyd Rice is not a "nazi", but writing about social darwinism or anything against the grain of cultural marxism will most definitely get you labeled "nazi". I've met Boyd and in real life...he's one pleasant, polite, mild mannered, knowledgable cat.
Tiki Boyd's in Denver opened in the mid-2000's...bummer it didn't last long...

On 2018-06-17 13:45, Ryan Partridge wrote:

On 2018-06-16 13:40, MrBaliHai wrote:
The Exotica revival was kick-started by an industrial-noise musician/prankster/Neo-Nazi* named Boyd Rice who played Martin Denny and Les Baxter LPs over the PA system before his concerts.

*-The "opinion" part of of this statement has to do with whether or not Boyd Rice was/is an actual Neo-Nazi, the rest is factual. Boyd also co-owned a Tiki bar in Denver back in the 90s, and was an acolyte of Anton LeVay.

Unpopular or not, I'm of the opinion that Boyd Rice is not a "nazi", but writing about social darwinism or anything against the grain of cultural marxism will most definitely get you labeled "nazi". I've met Boyd and in real life...he's one pleasant, polite, mild mannered, knowledgable cat.
Tiki Boyd's in Denver opened in the mid-2000's...bummer it didn't last long...

Help me out here... Did he truly "kick-start the exotica revival?" I've heard that attributed to others, I'm honestly not trolling, because I really don't know. So thought I'd circle back around and ask this point-blank.

What am I drinking right now? I'm sipping barrel-proof whiskey with a single large ice cube. It's sublime.

It would be really interesting to come up with a chronology of exactly when and what happened in the "Exotica Revival."

Would you go back to the Pee-wee's Playhouse use of Quiet Village in the opening credits?

Or before that?

The "DIY Tiki Era" is dead.

I have struggled with the changes just as many others have. My current thought is that the change happened when we on TC stopped being the experts. In some ways, many of us still are, but as the number and quality of people who are employed as full time Tiki mixologists and suppliers has risen, the days when us DIY Tiki people were the experts have come to an end.

There are idiots out there making falernum with lime juice in it because some other guy posted it to his blog a long time ago and since it's online from a long time ago, they think it's gold. It ain't!

There was a time when, if you wanted to make falernum or allspice dram, the TC forums were THE source. If you want any sort of Tiki mixology question answered, you started here and maybe read a few links. But the people here had been in the trenches for a decode or two and knew more than anyone about the subject.

Now there are many many people not doing this in their spare time, but daily for a living.

And that has sucked the life out of it for a lot of us.

It has also allowed it to start veering way off course. Newbies are crossing the globe carrying the Tiki flag and they are not even making Tiki cocktails. They make shit wrong. Or they simply are falling into the typical ego driven bartender world which is style over substance.

The drinks were mixed in the back of the house for a reason. It was about the drinks, not the bartender.

We have summoned this demon of new Tiki and it is out of our control. Idiots are now the reigning "experts" and they'll undo 20 years of our work in short order.

Beware of any Tiki bartender who can't make a classic Mai Tai, Navy Grog, Zombie, and Jet Pilot that rocks. Once they only make "their versions" you are in bartender ego-world. Cult of personality.

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
The "DIY Tiki Era" is dead.

I dunno. From where I'm standing (Arkansas), DIY Tiki is all we've got.

:wink:

Hang in there, Arkansas; it ain't half bad as it seems!

What really ticks me off is when people think Tiki is ALL about the drinks, what's in the drinks and nothing but the drinks.

Screw the drinks; anybody - ANYBODY - can copy a classic recipe. Big deal.

I carve Tikis, make Tiki clothing, swing Tiki golf clubs, take vacations in Tikiland, have written a Tiki kid's book, and am now making a Portable 1952 era Tiki Podcast iPhone Radio Boombox thing that rocks yer sox right off brah.

Will post pics laytah...

On 2018-06-18 12:13, tikitube wrote:

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
The "DIY Tiki Era" is dead.

I dunno. From where I'm standing (Arkansas), DIY Tiki is all we've got.

:wink:

have you been to Cannibal & Craft in Fayetville?

On 2018-06-18 13:28, Cammo wrote:
What really ticks me off is when people think Tiki is ALL about the drinks, what's in the drinks and nothing but the drinks.

Screw the drinks; anybody - ANYBODY - can copy a classic recipe. Big deal.

I see your points - tiki is definitely more than just drinks. But from the standpoint of people today making progress, and giving the concept of "tiki" more exposure, I'll begrudgingly take tiki drinks in non-tiki establishments. Let me explain that a bit. In the past three years I have personally seen one of the top 100 bars in the US do a "Tiki Tuesdays" program in their industrial and definitely non-tiki bar. Afterwards, from that bar came more than just rock star bartenders, but also several new rum brand ambassadors. And several of those were significant contributors to the past 3 or 4 Hukilaus in Fort Lauderdale. My point is that we all love tiki, but there comes a point where we can honestly point to today's incarnations and say it is dynamic, living, breathing, organic, and growing around the edges. Is it bad? To some it is. Is it good? It's better than where tiki was 40 years ago. I think we will always see a "core" of traditional tiki along with the "edges" of innovation and experimentation. I try not to be a harsh stuck-in-a-rut critic because I know some of these folks and the things they struggle with to keep their doors open.

On 2018-06-18 13:28, Cammo wrote:
Hang in there, Arkansas; it ain't half bad as it seems!

LoL, no worries! I like the DIY Tiki stuff. Plus, I'd be broke more often if we were a tiki Mecca. :)

What really ticks me off is when people think Tiki is ALL about the drinks, what's in the drinks and nothing but the drinks.

Screw the drinks; anybody - ANYBODY - can copy a classic recipe. Big deal.

Now THAT is an unpopular opinion... but I tend to agree. I believe that in most cases a bad tiki drink is probably just the result of someone not having the correct ingredients or recipe. Not to belittle our professional mixologists, but lots of the classic recipes aren't exactly rocket science. If that Mai Tai is bad, it could be ignorance or laziness...or it could just be a bartender doing the best with what the management has stocked. And in most cases, when ordering a "tiki drink" at a non-tiki bar, the non-tiki customer isn't going to notice or care.

I understand Swankys bitterness, though it does feel a bit like sour grapes. We just can't keep tiki to ourselves...!

On 2018-06-18 13:51, stevekh wrote:

On 2018-06-18 12:13, tikitube wrote:

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
The "DIY Tiki Era" is dead.

I dunno. From where I'm standing (Arkansas), DIY Tiki is all we've got.

:wink:

have you been to Cannibal & Craft in Fayetville?

Soon! Ive heard the drinks are decent, but that it's pretty lite on tiki atmosphere. I'm limited when it comes to tiki travel, and I might have to hit TikiCat first. :)

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
My current thought is that the change happened when we on TC stopped being the experts.

The whole post but especially this part makes me look side eye. This post probably won't even be my tenth here, I lurk a lot but I don't post much cause to me the this place gives off a circle jerking and gate-keeping vibe. This place can be a valuable resource but it's not very welcoming. Read enough old threads and it's all we apporove hoorah hoorah or it's we don't approve therefor it's not really tiki.

On 2018-06-19 02:03, The_Alchemist wrote:

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
My current thought is that the change happened when we on TC stopped being the experts.

The whole post but especially this part makes me look side eye. This post probably won't even be my tenth here, I lurk a lot but I don't post much cause to me the this place gives off a circle jerking and gate-keeping vibe. This place can be a valuable resource but it's not very welcoming. Read enough old threads and it's all we apporove hoorah hoorah or it's we don't approve therefor it's not really tiki.

Glad I wasn't alone in how I read that.

Per Sven, Tiki is an art form.

But I doubt Tiki would have existed without DtB's cocktails.

Today, what is "Tiki" in popular culture has to do with the drinks. It has come to define it. Non-Tiki bars serve the Tiki recipes and people call them Tiki bars. Most of us would disagree. But we don't have a say any longer. It's escaped the world of s sub-sub-culture.

That's my point. The era of it being an underground where people were discovering places, ingredients, ways of carving and decorating, making mugs, etc. has passed to the professional era. Almost every aspect of Tiki has a professional class now. That didn't exist until recently.

So people are defining Tiki to the world whether it is Tiki or not. And those people may well run it headlong into "cultural appropriation" and that too will be beyond the control of the people who have been steadily researching and digging into this stuff for years and decades.

Tiki getting bigger and more popular is not good for Tiki. If it saved more vintage places it would be great, but it has always lacked that power.

On 2018-06-18 14:03, AceExplorer wrote:
I see your points - tiki is definitely more than just drinks. But from the standpoint of people today making progress, and giving the concept of "tiki" more exposure, I'll begrudgingly take tiki drinks in non-tiki establishments. Let me explain that a bit. In the past three years I have personally seen one of the top 100 bars in the US do a "Tiki Tuesdays" program in their industrial and definitely non-tiki bar. Afterwards, from that bar came more than just rock star bartenders, but also several new rum brand ambassadors. And several of those were significant contributors to the past 3 or 4 Hukilaus in Fort Lauderdale. My point is that we all love tiki, but there comes a point where we can honestly point to today's incarnations and say it is dynamic, living, breathing, organic, and growing around the edges. Is it bad? To some it is. Is it good? It's better than where tiki was 40 years ago. I think we will always see a "core" of traditional tiki along with the "edges" of innovation and experimentation. I try not to be a harsh stuck-in-a-rut critic because I know some of these folks and the things they struggle with to keep their doors open.

Long-time lurker here. I think someone else summed it up pretty well earlier above. Tiki is evolving and I don't get why we act so surprised, we see this all the time with other things around us. None of us own it. None of us can stop it. It really is art in the public domain and while many respect it some desecrate it.

Kind of like science fiction; there’s the sort of well read, semi-well known Isaac Asimov and then there’s ...
well...
STAR WARS.

On 2018-06-18 12:13, tikitube wrote:

On 2018-06-18 08:20, Swanky wrote:
The "DIY Tiki Era" is dead.

I dunno. From where I'm standing (Arkansas), DIY Tiki is all we've got.

:wink:

I'm in TN, so...

Plenty of people are still making and doing themselves, more than ever, I'm just saying there are now people whose profession is whatever "craft" you and I do as a hobby in our spare time. And those people doing it for a living every day are the experts at whatever it is now, not people like you and I who do it as a hobby, whether it's carving, or making syrups.

Not too long ago TC was your best source for info on these "hobbies". Now the professionals are the experts. That's the paradigm change I see.

And there was a time when the Tiki cocktail bloggers were really on the forefront. Their old posts are still great resources. But there are now many books by professionals and many bars run by professionals, designed and decorated by professionals, buying their supplies from professionals... It used to be just us hobbists.

Unpopular opinion: I could really care less about the drinks... The concept of alcohol even being palatable to me is fairly new. It's all about the decor and vibe. My favourite "Tiki bar" in the entire world is the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland, into which one can only bring some variation on pineapple juice, with or without Dole Whip. A non-Tiki bar with Tiki drinks have an interesting addition to the menu if coworkers take me to one, but it does not a Tiki bar make.

Now that said, they're perfectly entitled to do that. Tiki doesn't belong to anyone, and while we should respect the work of those who came before us in recovering these recipes and keeping the Tiki torch burning, elitism is an ugly thing. It goes back to something I said somewhere on this forum before, that cultures thrive by having a well-defined core rather than well-defined borders. The core keeps the culture centred while the fuzzy edges allow people to explore, innovate, have fun with it, and ease into it. Those people having a crappy Mai Tai at some normie bar might eventually find their way on here, building a home Tiki bar, or whatever.

Now THAT said, I'm not a Tiki purist and I don't feel unwelcome here. I don't know if that's just because I'm confident in what I like and Tiki isn't my all-consuming passion and "just walk away from the screen like...close your eyes haha" or what.

TIki Purists Go Home

Nice example. Tiki Purists are Trolls and he uses quotes from Martin Cate and Jeff Berry to try to make the point that we Tiki purists should get lost.

Actually his point is all over the place. Is he saying slushies are cool with Tiki or not? I know few who think Tiki is in a glass case and we should not embrace new cocktails as also Tiki if they fit the genre. It's just who decides what fits the genre??? Apparently those of us who have been making and sharing our mixing results here for a long while are just trolls. Troll or keeper of the faith? What are TC members?

This is getting messy.

From a tiki purists' point of view, you could probably cite tiki as another victim of disruptive technology and subculture commodification, but then some of those same purists (or original hobbyists) would also be guilty of spreading the word of tiki and helping to nudge it back into the spotlight of mainstream media, via their art, writing, and social engagements.

Swanky, at what point does a hobbyist become a "professional"? When he/she makes a living from it? I would guess that most hobbyists here wouldn't be too averse to their books or art becoming hot sellers.

Honestly, I always thought of you as a tiki professional. :wink:

DIY Tiki is alive and well and living here in Groovetown.

I just made this Portable iPhone Radio Tiki Boombox Thing to listen to Exotica Podcasts on; it's FREAKING AMAZING listening to all the great Lounge - Exotica - Tiki - Hawaiian music broadcasting out of this. I've also got 6 different stations on Pandora I dial up, one for each style. You can pick it up and set it down anywhere and people just flip out and ask all about the music.

The back hinges open and then thumbscrews shut.

I custom made the whole thing from scratch to fit my Nixon powered/rechargable speaker and my iPhone pressed together inside. The inside is lined with GREEN FELT. Yup.

Here's the coolest thing; it's voice controlled.
You can yell "HEY SIRI! TURN THE VOLUME UP!" and it does it.

Spongebob Squarepants has played huge part in getting younger generations into Tiki Culture.

[ Edited by: Iakona 2018-06-20 06:31 ]

On 2018-06-19 09:43, Swanky wrote:
TIki Purists Go Home

Nice example. Tiki Purists are Trolls and he uses quotes from Martin Cate and Jeff Berry to try to make the point that we Tiki purists should get lost.

I wasn't able to read it because WaPo doesn't like my ad-blocker, which is fine because I don't like their ads. If the new EU regulations go through, nobody will even be able to post corporate media links anyways.

I think Tiki purists are great. You guys and gals are the ones keeping the strong, well-defined core and we need you. I fully admit that I'm on the fuzzy edges of Tiki, but I've never felt unwelcome here. If there is any problem, it isn't with purists, it's with elitists. There is a difference.

Here's the full article for those who can't read it.

The anonymous email came in a few months after Owen Thomson and Ben Wiley opened Archipelago, their tiki bar on U Street NW. “Don’t you have any Tiki drinks with more than four to five ingredients? Technically, that’s pretty anti-Tiki in my opinion,” Mr. Congeniality opened his missive. It “works great for the bottom line, but quite frankly, insults any long-standing fan of real Tiki.”

“In short,” the email concluded, “whoever created your beverage program is a mere fanboy at best — not someone who is well grounded in the traditions of the past.”

Dude, I thought, sipping my delicious, complex cocktail and reading the printout — which the bar keeps pinned up in the back for the staff’s amusement — you’re being verrrrry un-Dude.

From their origin in California in the 1930s, first with Don the Beachcomber, then Trader Vic’s and countless imitators since, tiki bars have long been a kind of tropical fantasia, a rum-soaked refuge from postwar anxieties and the daily grind.

But they clearly provide no refuge from the age of trolls. The email confirmed my belief that within every subculture — be it Star Wars buffs, vinyl aficionados or lovers of Siamese cats — there is a sub-subculture so obsessed with arguing about the subject that they’re willing to risk ruining enjoyment in the name of dogma. (Wiley referred to these tik-tators as “strict constructionists,” a Washingtonian’s tiki term if there ever was one.)

Don’t misunderstand: I’m not making a case for #FakeBooze, nor saying that tiki aficionados shouldn’t respect their mixological history. But particularly with tiki, angry accusations of violating some eternal rules seem particularly wacky.

That’s partly because tiki bars, with their fruity rum drinks and laid-back ethos, have long run blissfully counter to the bitters-forward, cocktails-you-have-to-think-about trends that have defined much of the cocktail renaissance. Tiki drinks, says Martin Cate, owner of San Francisco bar Smuggler’s Cove and author of a James Beard Award-winning book on rum and tiki, are meant to delight, not challenge. They’re “not there to pick a fight. They’re not, like, nine kinds of amaro and some Laphroaig,” he says, referring to the heavily peated Scotch whisky that, according to a drinker in one of its ads, tastes like a burning hospital.

But moreover, tiki culture — the 20th-century American style, not the Polynesian mythology it’s loosely drawn from — is by nature a pastiche, borrowed from other cultures in ways that are sometimes informed and respectful, sometimes problematic. Some argue that certain elements of tiki iconography exploit genuine elements of Polynesian and other “exotic” cultures, turning them into escapist kitsch. These days, one can slurp from a bowl bedecked with scantily clad island girls or vaguely “African” idols for only so long before sensing, beneath the pulse of rum, that these things should make you go “Hmmm” — and give you pause before launching attacks based on tiki “authenticity.”

Defining a tiki drink can be tricky business. Is it only “tiki” if it came from the recipes of Don the Beachcomber or Trader Vic’s? What about imitators? Should tiki drinks incorporate only ingredients that were available in the 1930s, the dawn of tiki? What about all those blended tropical drinks that share tiki’s “come with me and escape” aesthetic? If a palm tree is standing within 50 feet of the bar, are you
automatically drinking a tiki drink?

It’s an oversimplification, but tiki drinks are basically “Caribbean drinks with Polynesian names,” says Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, owner of Latitude 29 in New Orleans, and author of multiple books that detail the history of tiki drinks. Without Berry’s work tracking down recipes from early tiki bars in California, we would have little idea what most original tiki drinks tasted like.

Berry’s definition is based on Don the Beachcomber’s approach: A tiki drink, he says, is a Caribbean drink squared, and in some cases cubed. Don’s inspiration for almost all of the drinks he created was the Planter’s Punch — rum, lime and sugar and maybe some bitters. “And he took that very simple construct and multiplied everything by a factor of two or three. Instead of lime juice, what happens when you put lime and grapefruit together? Multiple sours, multiple citrus. Same thing with the sweetness. Instead of just sugar, what happens if we put in honey, or honey and falernum, or honey and falernum and passion fruit syrup?”

Trader Vic’s, Cate says, added to the approach by blending rum with other spirits to make more complex drinks, and substituting the base spirit in some classic templates.

This background helps make sense of some of the strange outliers in the tiki canon: the Singapore Sling and the Suffering Bastard, for example, which aren’t rum-based and are neither Polynesian nor Caribbean in origin. The gin-based Saturn, a recipe Berry found printed on the side of a cocktail glass in a vintage store, has become a regular on modern tiki menus, as has the Jungle Bird, a delicious weirdo that is rum-based but adds Campari (unusual in tiki, but that bitterness “is catnip to craft cocktail people,” Berry says).

These oddballs slid past the velvet rope by a variety of means: adventurous or boozy-sounding names that matched the aesthetic, origins in a perceived “exotic” locale (the Suffering Bastard was invented in Cairo in the ’40s). Others showed up in beach bars and got mistaken for a member of the club (as with the piña colada, which Berry says has nothing to do with tiki).

Many of these seeming interlopers, though, make sense, Cate says: They have baroque recipes that balance sweet and tart and spice appropriately. But some drinks that turn up under bars’ “tiki” headings aren’t. Cate says Smuggler’s Cove tries to separate the “welcome guests” from the “slushy Visigoths” — the Mudslides, Lava Flows and Bushwackers that may be served in tropical locations but don’t really follow the template of a real tiki drink.

Cate and Berry understand the need for some pickiness. It took a while for modern cocktailers to grasp that tiki drinks were the first truly “craft” cocktails, Berry says, and Cate says that failure to protect their quality helped lead to the disrepute tiki fell into for decades, an age of sour mix and powdered flavorings. But the notion that “as long as I put 11 ingredients into the shaker it’s an exotic cocktail” is also off-base, Cate says.

Archipelago’s recipes include ingredients not on classic tiki menus — pandan, guava, Thai iced tea — but are used in ways that bear out tradition: complex layering of booze, citrus, spice and sweeteners into delicious drinks. To paraphrase the oft-quoted line about defining obscenity, I know tiki when I taste it.

The bar also has a semi-secret “old school tiki” menu, consisting of recipes from tiki’s golden age, so purists can get there from here. But, Wiley says, while they’re aware of the history of their particular cocktail thread, “we don’t treat tiki like a museum. Things evolve.”

And given the unease many have started to feel around some elements of tiki, I’d say amen to aware evolution. The tiki school of beverages includes some damn tasty drinks, and I’d like to be able to enjoy the island reverie without worrying that I’m indulging in the cocktailing equivalent of lawn jockeys. A fan of real tiki should know the history and be clear about what’s classic and what’s new. But tiki has long taken charming strangers into its embrace, and modern tiki can afford to open its doors — to welcome new and charming guests, and throw some older aesthetic baggage (and some trolls) out in the street.

M. Carrie Allan is a Hyattsville, Md., writer and editor. Follow her on Twitter: