Swanky - Tiki Torchbearer cover article

Some high weirdness has made me the cover story for the local weekly independant paper here in Knoxville. They have declared me "Knoxville's tiki king." A well written article on Tiki past and present.

Mai-Kai Memories Series Custom ceramic mugs!

[ Edited by: swanky 2012-07-12 05:53 ]

Congrats Tim! After reading my fare share of articles about "Tiki" over the years, I must say this is a good one, and I am sure no less thanks to you. Your passion for the subject shines through nicely, and with that, the passion of all Tiki lovers.

Superb article, Tim! I'm proud to have one of those puffer-fish lamps of yours (“I’ve bled a lot from them.”) as the central beacon in my home Tiki bar. The article, in quoting you, eloquently captures what I feel about my own Tiki bar...

“My tiki bar in my home is the escape pod,” he says. “At the end of the day, you go in there and you’re not anywhere else. It’s not necessarily back in time, it’s out of time. It’s its own place, its own world that you can go to whenever you want. It’s usually quiet, stressing conversation over the typical bar, which is loud and rowdy. It’s a place where you can reconnect with your friends or your spouse or whoever, and just unwind.”

-Tom

That was a pretty good article, Good for you Swanky!

We are not worthy oh Tiki god! :D

Congrats Swanky!

Trader Scott's made it in there too.

Really cool :drink:

Great article, and it really comes across as if they care about "getting it right", from our standpoint! Must've rubbed off, in the interview process.

Great reading.

I enjoyed that article. Came across really well.

Great piece. The the mystery of the '34 Zombie is a great metaphor for the Tiki movement(and my favorite cocktail)

Very nice! Article and pictures well done.

Congratulations Tim!

Nice article!!!!

You should be proud of everything you have accomplished. :)

Very nice article, Swanky. Hopefully more people will "Get It". OGR

Great article! Makes me wish I could try one of those Swanky tiki drinks. :wink:

Very nice article and thhe Hapa Haole Hideaway looks GREAT!!

The only historical mistake was the closing of the Kahiki. The Bon Voyage Kahiki party took place on August 26th 2000.

Still a great read and very well written.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

So often even the best intentioned articles end up including something that makes me cringe a little. But this one is great. All hail the king of Tennessee tiki

Great article, I will share this with some of my "non-tiki" and "kinda-tiki" friends in an effort to continue to draw them into the things that I enjoy so much. So far they just enjoy coming over and drinking my tiki cocktails... But at least I have friends to drink with, right?

Too bad about the spelling errors in the article -- "Barry" instead of "Berry," and I think I saw one or two others in there. I thought the writer did an above-average amount of his own research, so some of the typos really surprised me, but not everyone is a spelling king when they write stuff, even with benefit of spell checkers...

Tip tip hoorah!

Great article Swanky. Congratulations.

Even better than the article, which is good, is the fact that this seems to call out the new tiki bar there and make them up their game. That can only be a good thing.

I mean, Ooga Mooga? Who would ever name anything that? :)

:tiki: Congrats Tim! AAA +++++ QUALITY #1!! :tiki:

say, Swanky, you look an awful lot like the chap that hit me over the head with a Jack Daniels bottle in Old City in 1996. Where were you that night, eh?!

Congats Spanky!!!

He did a great job I think. The article was scheduled to be in next week's issue and got bumped up, so he lost research time. They are still editing the online version. Fixed typos and removed reference to Kona Kai as an existing tiki place.

I got a message on FB last night from some girl wanting to have 6-7 of her friends over for a special and unique birthday celebration... I figured that might happen.

Super article Swanky you will help keep tiki strong, Wendy and Dan

Looks like Tiger Lily & I will have to do that oft-delayed Omni Hut & Ooga Mooga's Tennessee tiki road trip now.

On 2012-07-13 14:22, White Devil wrote:
Looks like Tiger Lily & I will have to do that oft-delayed Omni Hut & Ooga Mooga's Tennessee tiki road trip now.

And Hapa Haole Hideaway visit too I hope. Drop me a line when you are coming.

Congratulations...great article and pictures. Glad to see it was a healthy length too so the reader gets the full picture of the Tiki passion.

Cheers! Much deserved!

Hey congrats Tim!!
Great article.
So this makes you the king of midwest tiki land.
The bar looks great too, is the Kahiki light hanging in there?
Need to come see your bar one day.

On 2012-07-16 04:36, tikiskip wrote:
Hey congrats Tim!!
Great article.
So this makes you the king of midwest tiki land.
The bar looks great too, is the Kahiki light hanging in there?
Need to come see your bar one day.

The Kahiki lamp is the red one up to the right of center behind the ships lamp.

Again, congratulations on the article! You really do represent Tiki in Knoxville and elsewhere quite well. I have not had the opportunnity to visit Trader Scott's, but he was also well represented in the paper.

As I've already discussed with Swanky, The Ooga Mooga Tiki Tavern has a LOT of work to do with their drinks. I visited last Friday night and was sadly dissapointed. I went with a Mai-Tai first (gold standard, right?) and was dismayed when I received a red drink that looked and tasted like a Hurricane. and only a very average, run of the mill Hurricane at that. The bartender says "No, that's not a Hurricane. That's our version of a Mai-Tai." As you can imagine, my heart sunk. I gave it one more shot with a Scorpian (notice the spelling... from their menu) and got another red drink in another Hurricane glass that only tasted like a subtle variation from the first. BOO!! Even my girlfriend, who thinks I've lost my mind over my new found addiction, was appalled at the drinks they were preparing! I tried to have a very polite discussion with the Manager who seemed somewhat interested until I got into ingredients and appropriate recipes then his eyes kind of glazed over. I suspect that this is essentially what has historically caused the demise of many Polynesian and/or Tiki establishments over the years! OK... I'm done venting. Sorry to do it on this thread. I guess I'll just have to secure another invite to the Hapa Haole Hideaway to cure my Tiki blues.

In the meantime... Where did I put my Orgeat??

Congrats again Tim and ALOHA!