Best Tiki Drink Book

I just finished reading Beachbum Berrys "Sippin Safari" so far this is the best tiki drink book I have found yet to date (It's Amazing). Does anyone have any recommendations on Tiki drink books that top this book?

[ Edited by: Tiki_Zombie 2008-09-15 16:26 ]

The Grog Log and Intoxica both have Sippin Safari beat IMHO.
Spiral bound is a big plus for me.

I just got this one from my wife for my birthday:

It includes a Trader Vic back story, how to set up a tiki party, and shows the Trader Vic's versions of drink and food.

I'll throw in a nomination for a not-so-good drink book...Tiki Drinks by Adam Rocke, with illustrations by Shag. The only thing that book is good for is the artwork, the drink recipes are all wrong for the well known drinks and the rest are all candy flavored garbage. I'll second the nominations for the Grog Log and Intoxica...put those together with Sippin' Safari and you have the core of any good Tiki bar.

They make Tiki drink books now? AWESOME! This whole Tiki thing might just catch on!

I've considered reducing my cocktail library to five books:

1. Grog Log
2. Sipping Safari
3. Intoxica
4. Art of Mixology by Gary Regan
5. Art of the Bar by Hollinger and Schwartz

The last two aren't tiki, but sometimes a Sazerac is what you need instead of a Suffering Bastard.

On 2008-09-16 13:42, Ojaitimo wrote:
The Grog Log and Intoxica both have Sippin Safari beat IMHO.
Spiral bound is a big plus for me.

You can go to your local Kinko's/Office Max/Staples/Sir Speedy/etc. and ask them to cut off the spine and spiral bind it. Shouldn't cost more than 5-8 dollars.

I think I've probably seen a good dozen tropical drink books, own about half of them, and in my opinion the only ones worth cracking the spine on are Beachbum Berry's. Buy all of them, and don't bother with the others (when it comes to tropical drink recipes, anyway).

Beyond the world of books, there are a whole mess of cocktail bloggers out there who are doing great work with tropical cocktails. While a book is a lot easier to have with you at the bar, the advantage of the blog format is that they can get in-depth on the process of making each cocktail, talking about each ingredient, alternatives for hard-to-find ingredients, tricks they've picked up, etc -- plus, you can ask questions via the comments. Both tikimonkey & Melintur (TCers) have great mixology blogs that center mostly on tropicals, and if you dig into their blogrolls you'll find a bunch more:

http://tdif.brotherhoodofif.com - Melintur's blog, Tiki Drinks and Indigo Firmaments
http://www.tradertiki.com - tikimonkey's blog, Trader Tiki's Booze Blog

This topic has ben covered before, several times, such as here:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=4904&forum=10&hilite=tropical%20drink%20book

Hanford, is there a way to do a thread merge on TC (something I have seen on other boards)?
It would be handy!

I vote for Tiki Drink Books having it's own sub-category!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Trader Vic's Bartending Guide. I have the 1972 version and recommend it, even if quite a few of the recipes call for TV mixes rather than ingredients from scratch. You can usually pick up a used copy cheap on http://www.bookfinder.com for 5 bucks.

when ever i spot a cocktail book I always search out there recipe for the Mai Tai and have a good laugh at some of the pineapple and orange juice fizzy sugar abortions that some writers pass off as a mai tai.

So i was surprised when i picked up the Difford's Guide To Cocktails Vol.7 and found not only the correct version of a mai tai but the Zombie recipies were attributed to beachbum berry, with 2250 other cocktail it might be worth your while to add this book to your cocktail library.

I LOVE bartender books. The recipes I use, but the stories I treasure. That's why all of Berry's books are great!

Yep, the stories are great in the Beach Bum Berry books.
Taboo Table deserves to be on this short list too IMHO. (OK, not humble)

The Berry Books on top, in personal order;

• Intoxica!
• Grog Log
• Sippin' Safari
• Taboo Table

TT gets last slot since it has shared food recipes, Intoxica goes first since it has the most falernum mixes
(just made up a batch of the stuff).
SS would go on top, what with the awesome pictures and overall layout, but the binding makes it hard to concoct and check @ the same time (and my third arm is in a sling at the moment) - but I guess it is a 'real' book first and recipe book second, so maybe I'll get a 2nd copy to tear it apart and ring it myself.

Then (on this list) it'd be 'Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide' (sorry, Vic!). Classic, with great introductory chapters, but it covers everything, not just the tropicals.

Other books tend to alter/massacre the traditional recipes, but I like the Tommy Murphy books, if sometimes only for the photographs.

...and have a look at the Mai Tai entry...

I only own a few tiki drink books, but Sippin' Safari is BY FAR my favorite. It has great drink recipes and wonderful text and graphics. The book is a true tiki masterpiece. I absolutely need to get copies of "Grog Log" and "Intoxica."

The Trader Vic's Revised BG is pretty good, but a large portion of the recipes are redundant and some of the most important recipes (Navy Grog, Tiki Puka-Puka) call for commercial syrup. No bueno. That said, it's my second favorite book and it's also good for just regular vintage cocktail recipes.

I own the Don the Beachcomber book written by his widow's new husband. Frankly, it's confusing and poorly edited. Also, many of the recipes call for ingredients that aren't readily available. I haven't even gotten around to making more than one or two of the drinks in the book.

Atomic Cocktails is a good, non-tiki-specific vintage cocktail book. But it's better for the aesthetic than the recipes.

I have two of the Shag-themed party books, including "Tiki Drinks." But those are, again, better for the aesthetic than the recipes.

The others I have are cheapo generic "Tropical Drinks" recipe books. They look good on the shelf, but I never use them for drink recipes.

My Partner and I just finished Sippin' Safari so that is tops with us now. The next book to go through is still up for grabs.
Jeff