The value Proposition

of a home tiki bar is quite high.... Sure we spent many $$$ on tiki accouterments, bamboo and thatch, but we drink quality martinis @ $1 per glass and we can listen to priceless exotica music of our choosing. Long live the home tiki bar devotee!

And we don't have to see any of the tools that frequent all of the local bars around! Oh wait, you don't live in so-cal. Well, I'm sure there's a bunch of idiots in Florida too. But I agree with your post...There's nothing better than the home tiki bar!

On 2010-03-05 17:33, kahalakruzer wrote:
And we don't have to see any of the tools that frequent all of the local bars around! Oh wait, you don't live in so-cal. Well, I'm sure there's a bunch of idiots in Florida too. But I agree with your post...There's nothing better than the home tiki bar!

Our tools are such tools that they even know they're tools. (did that make sense?)

REALLY glad they have created this separate Home Bar category here @ TC. Thortiki

Was at Trader Vic's ATL recently and looked at the drink menu and thought "meh". Everything on that menu I make a lot better and a lot cheaper, or I know they aren't to my taste. Too sweet. They don't make a real Mai Tai unless you can grab Joel. Navy Grog, well, I prefer Don's....

The value of the home bar can't be beat in my opinion. In the ATL, one cocktail made with premium spirits will set you back $10... I can pick up 10 six-foot bamboo poles for the same amount and almost finish my bar! Not to mention that Tiki is rare if not extinct here in the southlands (Florida probably being a unique exception, of course). And too true, thankfully, how easy it is to avoid all the tools within the confines of one's own domicile...

Geez you guys. You're within driving distance of a well-preserved, vintage, and might I remind, NEARLY EXTINCT Trader Vic's and the only comment is "I can do better at home"? Well, honestly, I can too. I can do better drink-wise than most of these places at home, Atlanta Vic's included. But if everyone (not just TCers) just sat at home and drank their own drinks and stared at their own bamboo-covered walls, these places would be kaput and the only tiki bars left would be the ones in our homes. And that would be sad.

Personally, I'll continue to fly 1000s of miles and drive across states to visit these few places that are left. That is, until they are finally gone. Or I'm gone, whichever comes first.

Now, back to Geoff's ramblings... :wink:

Amazing how this new Tiki Central section has taken of in only a month or two! Really proves the Home Bar is, next to the art, the true expression of the Tiki revival. The dedication and investment shown here are wonderful. Who will make a book about Tiki home bars and their concepts!!?

Let's just say that someone has already been working on this book for quite some time ; )

If it's the someone GROG is thinking of, then the book will probably be coming out in 2055, when the next Tiki Revival comes around. :wink:

...yea, but it will be an AMAZING book !

Hell, by 2055 there better be three dimensional cyberspace environments which you could plug your brain into...and fine tune everything exactly to your liking...down to the ambient lighting to choice and volume of music to the formulas of the cocktails, to choice of date(s?) - in other words - BOOKS??!!?

I (think) I just invented the new wave of a not too distant, future tiki revival :lol:

TikiG

tiki since '67!

[ Edited by: TikiG 2010-03-12 11:42 ]

Hey Rob, I was at TV when I had these thoughts, so... I still go.

I'd sort of quote Sven about how his book made us imagine a place that maybe didn't exist. These home bars we are creating are a very refined and well executed idea of a tiki bar that may never have existed. We have elevated the places beyond maybe their ability to provide.

I have been in some great public bars that are the summit I aspire to. They drive me. And in a way, I will never reach it. Why? Because in my bar I have to squeeze the limes and crush the ice and usually make the drinks. And often it is just me and the wife and maybe a couple of friends. It honestly loses something, while it gains something else. It is a replica of the thing I seek, not the thing itself.

The real truth is: I build my home bar for my guests. The Hideaway may the the closest my guests will ever get to the Mai-Kai, Hala Kahiki or the Aku Tiki Room. I strive to make them feel what I feel when I am in those temples.

I miss you tiki bar! Can't wait to feel your energy again! June. June...

And in another can of worms, let me say that to re-create my bar, decor and construction, would cost in the neighborhood of $25,000. I went through my mug shelf alone and figure there's maybe $3k there. Of course the Big Guy is about $7k of that cost, so... But, like most of us, I did nearly all the work myself and I bought all my mugs at low prices. I spent more like $5-6k on my home bar. which is 12 x 19 feet. And I spent that money over about 8 years of collecting...

I agree about supporting your local (or sort of local) tiki bars in addition to having your own joint. After all, that same formula holds true for restaurants or any other bar in that you can enjoy a great meal and bottle of wine (ok, when switching from rum, whenever that may be) for a fraction of the cost of the same in a quality restaurant with good service and probably boring decor and atmosphere. Being in Dallas and missing our Trader Vic's already, I can say do all you can to keep the vintage tiki temples fires burning bright or all we will have is the tiki revival and none of the originals (uh, the made up fakey versions of Polynesia we call original here) to enjoy! And still build a tiki bar at home to initiate the uninitiated and sate the true heathen too.

GK

$100 per Friday/Saturday night of drinking x 52 weeks (some weeks more or less)= $5,200 x 10 years = $52,000.
Granted our expensive rums and such are not free, but drinking nice cocktails in a quality bar is seriously expensive over time.
Not being next door to Trader Vics, the Mai Kai or some other quality tiki establishment means we mostly stay home when the native in us gets restless. If our geography was different, who knows? Maybe we never would have gotten around to building our bar.
KG

I love my home bar. Its all I have, we don't have any Tiki establishments here in Oz all I can do is look on here and Critiki and such sites and dream about places like Trader Vic's, Bali Ha'i, Mai Kai, and all the other places that are within traveling distance of you lucky folk in the U.S. If I had one within a days travel, I would go there once a month or so. Patronize your bars as much as you can. I want them to stay open until I can get the bread to fly over and visit them myself!
Trader Bob....