Tiki Central agents bringing aloha to the new generation

Sunset Tiki Party TWO, is the brainchild of Dean Hurst's crew "The Left Coast Bartender's Guild" here in Tampa Bay. First of all, they are deadly serious about their cocktails and this crew of 30 plus Bartenders could fit in anywhere. They know their stuff and like any good cocktailians - they are eager to learn more.

So with that as the foundation of this post, I just want to ramble on a bit about this party and its possible implications for what we've discussed here for a few years in posts like "Is Tiki Dying" or "Is Tiki Mainstream" or other observations on the "culture."

500 or so, mostly hardbodies, all being served classic rum cocktails by bartenders who slaved like dogs. I'd say the average age was 27. Most of the girls - I mean, people - I leered at - I mean, talked to - we're of that age.
That was the foundation of this event, although I did witness many in very elegant island-wear - most were in 7 square inches of clothing - if that.

However, they did something a bit different because the leadership of the LCBG knows the culture as we've defined it here at TC. They invited many Tiki Central veterans to, for lack of a better description at this point, hold their hands and walk them into their first real tiki time.

martiki was the guest of honor and held court in his Tiki 101 seminar where he tried to lay the groundwork for their future cocktail endeavors.

Onya Birri led Stolen Idols and they started out with their beautiful exotica bringing everyone into that blissful state of beachness.

Myself and kanekila and Ken Kanaka played our Crazed Mugs music with a 6 piece band and did our style of Tiki Music and then The Intoxicators - with Tiki Goob laying down the foundation of sky-splitting surf music - rocked them into a frenzy.

Jeff Chouinard had some of his fabulous palm carvings there and was even working on a carving. Dean Arscott had some great artwork there.

bongofury and Mickee were there enjoying the vibe and bringing the aloha and there were other TC people there as well, both new and venerable.

Many rum brands had hospitality rooms set up.

Nothing different to us really. Most of us have been to events like this.
The thing that set this apart was the fact that this event was probably the first exposure to tiki stuff at all for 90 percent of the crowd.

There's no way to compare it to walking into the Mai Kai, and I don't expect that many of them ever will do that or really "get it" in regards to creating a paradise illusion in a certain room or building. However that's not the point of this post.

I've asked some of the people in attendance there to weigh in on what they thought about using this paradigm, mainly "a big rum party with tiki elements as centerstage" and to see if it's something that will create more opportunities for the tiki scene as we've defined it, to pull people from the mainstream and keep tiki bars alive and hold them to higher standards.

I feel it would benefit us all to see that happen in regards to music and cocktails, and introducing some elements of the atmosphere.

Anyway - "the kids" were all very gracious in complimenting us and the other musicians. We were gratified to play for them, even throughout the night as I strolled around with the uke. Lots of attentive people and the Zacapa folks even handed me a bottle of their finest rum as a gift.

sounds great. sorry i missed it.

Nice report, Pablus. I think spreading the spirit of Tiki among the un-iniated is a very worthy thing, and if the right missionaries are involved, like it seems it was the case here, it might inspire some long-term converts.

Now where are all the photos of all the scantily-clad female attendees? I won't believe a thing you said until I have proof... :D

Im with sven Pablus. I want to see those 7 square inches of clothing girls :wink:. But sounds like a pretty good gathering. Some of the words you said were discussed in another thread about tiki going mainstream or staying underground. Its good to have new initiates even though they may not be into tiki persay. Its whats going to make our tiki bars stay alive.

Here's one guy's flickr photo files -

Start from this one and move forward.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94393434@N00/7361801470/in/photostream/

Funny, I'm going through this dude's photos and seeing all those pics of Blue Hawaiians and thinking "Hmmmm, maybe we did more harm than good."
However, I think it was just coincidence that he shot that many pics of that vile potion. I rarely saw those floating around.

At one point a girl walks up and said how much she enjoyed the show and martiki says "Ooooh, your drink is blue."
She didn't get the rejoinder but we did.

[ Edited by: pablus 2012-06-11 14:16 ]

Here are a few more photos of the Sunset Tiki Party.

[ Edited by: Bora Boris - Fixed image links. - 2012-06-11 16:41 ]

Mrs fury & I happened to be on the Gulf Coast and thanks to Pablus and Martiki we got the full Aloha treatment. Just back in town but should have some pix up by the weekend

We went to Martin's Rum/Tiki 101 Seminar and while I had seen some of the elements at the Rhum-Rum talk at the Tonga Hut, Mrs. Fury had not. Martin's seminar's are always entertaining and we had 3 great full sized cocktails during the presentation (Smuggler's Cove Special, Three Dots and a Dash, and a Mai Tai). The video on how to make a Mai Tai with pre-mixes was hilarious and sad at the same time.

Then it was off to Pablus' room for pre-set fun.

Left Coast Bartender's Guild bar......the Blood & Sand was my fav from them. There were also bars set up in front of rooms by the pool giving away everything from Clement Creole to Bacardi and Ron Zacapa 23 (huge pour). The bartender for Plantation Rum made a killer drink for me & Pablus.

Stolen Idols were great and so were the Crazed Mugs.

Martin announces free Rum Barrels during the Crazed Mugs Rum Barrel song.

The Intoxicators finished it off with their rockin Surf set.

We topped off the evening by having some BBQ with Ken Kanaka and his lovely wife. The 2 1/2 hour drive back to Sanibel Island was a killer, but we did not have to go to work the next day so who cares! A great break in the middle of our vacation. Mahalo to everyone.

Looks like a good time!!

p.s. I've never had a problem with Self Promoting....:wink:

Many Mahaloz Pablus!!! and the other Mugs!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqdPPUB4aBs&feature=share

thanks for the props Pablus...

it was nice to finally meet you out there brother!

Definitely a great idea. Using "Rum" as the draw, as opposed to "Tiki". Luring them in with the idea of a big ass "run party", then adding in the tiki element, with the right people entertaining. No stupid hip hop dj's and redbull drinks....

Starting out with the apropos music for the time of day, and ending up with the Intoxicators, who are RAUCOUS to bring the yougsters back to something more familiar to them....rock music.

No doubt this younger generation of folks will not be like our generation of tikiphiles, because they dont have the memories of the old restaurants, so their perspective, and reason for enjoying an event like this will be different...unless they chose to dig in deep on this forum and find out all the historical info, buy the BOT and Tiki Modern and really get educated.

Still, by doing a party like this the right way, it's a great primer, and a great way to get the younger folks into our fave pastime. A+ !

The Tonga Hut is getting a whole young crowd now on weekends....Hipsters who like a cool bar....so, things are looking up, I'd say

Just have to throw my $.02 in here, and I hate to be all negative and realistic, but as cool as this event looked, it has to be followed up in order to have any kind of lasting impact. In the land of Jimmy Buffet and the home of Gasparilla, I bet most of what they did right just flew right by most of the attendees.

Not to be critical, though. I'm struggling with this issue over here on the Space Coast. We just hosted a very successful tiki night at a local restaurant and we are wrestling with how to leverage this success into something a little more permanent. Especially since most of the attendees at our event are already "tiki" and we only saw a handful of "civilians".

So really the question I would like to see people discuss is how to use a single, highly-successful event, like this one to build a permanent "tiki" scene in an area? I'm sure every person outside of highly urban area east of California probably asks themselves this question as every weekend rolls around and there is nowhere cool to go and have a decent tiki drink (outside of making your own).