Tiki bar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A tiki bar is an exotic–themed drinking establishment that serves elaborate cocktails, especially rum-based mixed drinks

Boat drinks

The name "boat drinks" comes from the song "Boat Drinks" by Jimmy Buffett from the album Volcano. Boat drinks are also known as umbrella drinks but are more commonly referred to as tiki drinks or exotic cocktails. These types of drinks are a class of cocktail generally containing rum and one or...

such as the "mai tai

Mai Tai

The Mai Tai is an alcoholic cocktail based on rum, Curaçao liqueur, and lime juice, associated with "Polynesian-style" settings.-History:It was purportedly invented at the Trader Vic's restaurant in Oakland, California in 1944. Trader Vic's rival, Don the Beachcomber, claimed to have created it in...

" or "Zombie cocktail

Zombie cocktail

The Zombie is a cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums, so named for its perceived effects upon the drinker. It first appeared in the late 1930s, invented by Donn Beach of Hollywood's Don the Beachcomber restaurant...

". Tiki bars are aesthetically defined by their Tiki culture

Tiki culture

Tiki kitsch culture is a 20th-century theme used in Polynesian-style restaurants and clubs originally in the United States and then, to a lesser degree, around the world...

décor which is based upon a romanticized conception of primitive tropical cultures, most commonly Polynesian

Polynesian culture

Polynesian culture refers to the indigenous peoples' culture of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. Chronologically, the development of Polynesian culture can be divided into four different historical eras:...

.

The interiors and exteriors of tiki bars often include "Tiki god" masks and carvings, grasscloth, tapa cloth and tropical fabrics, torches, woven fish traps, and glass floats, bamboo, plants, lava stone, Hula

Hula

Hula is a dance form accompanied by chant or song . It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form....

girl, palm tree motifs, tropical murals and other South Pacific-themed decorations. Indoor fountains, waterfalls or even lagoons are popular features. Some tiki bars also incorporate a stage for live entertainment such as Exotica

Exotica

Exotica is a musical genre, named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title, popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s, typically with the suburban set who came of age during World War II. The musical colloquialism, exotica, means tropical ersatz: the non-native, pseudo experience of Oceania...

-style bands or Polynesian dance floor shows.

History

The first tiki bar was named "Don the Beachcomber

Don the Beachcomber

Donn Beach , born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, is the founding father of tiki restaurants, bars and nightclubs. The many so-called "Polynesian" restaurants and pubs that enjoyed great popularity are directly descended from what he created...

", and was created in Los Angeles in 1933 by Ernest Gantt (aka "Donn Beach"). The bar served a wide variety of exotic rum drinks (including the popular "Sumatra Kula" and "Zombie cocktail

Zombie cocktail

") as well as Cantonese food, and displayed many artifacts that Gantt had collected on earlier trips through the tropics. When Gantt was sent to World War II, Don the Beachcomber flourished under his ex-wife's management, expanding into a chain of 16 restaurants.

When Gantt returned from the War, he moved to Hawaii and opened "Waikiki Beach", one of the two canonical tiki bars. The bar was designed to evoke the South Pacific, with palm trees, tiki masks on the walls, a garden hose that showered a gentle rain on the roof and a myna bird that was trained to shout "Give me a beer, stupid!" The bar was located on the beach, lit by tiki torches outside which enhanced its primitive ambiance.

The other canonical bar is Trader Vic's, the first of which was created by Victor Bergeron in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, in 1936. The quintessential tiki cocktail the "Mai Tai

Mai Tai

" was concocted at the original Trader Vic's in 1944. Bergeron expanded the business to eventually include branches all over the world, as well as marketing cocktail mixes and other products for retail sale. Members of the Bergeron family still have a hand in the operations of at least one branch. The original Oakland location is gone, but there is still a Trader Vic's located a few miles away in Emeryville, California

Emeryville, California

Emeryville is a small city located in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and...

.

The Tonga Room

Tonga Room

The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar is a restaurant and tiki bar in the Fairmont San Francisco hotel in San Francisco, California. Named after the South Pacific nation of Tonga, this dining and entertainment venue opened in 1945....

of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco is an iconic tiki bar operating since 1945, and undergoing a number of facelifts over the years.

The original Tiki bars flourished for about 30 years, and then soon fell out of vogue. In the 1990s, the Tiki culture

Tiki culture

Tiki kitsch culture is a 20th-century theme used in Polynesian-style restaurants and clubs originally in the United States and then, to a lesser degree, around the world...

was revived by a new generation of fans and new tiki bars were founded all over the world that often looked to Trader Vic's and Don the Beachcomber for inspiration.

Drinks

Many tiki bars have their own house specialty drinks, the recipes for which are often carefully guarded to prevent imitation by other bars. Various kinds of rum and blue Curaçao are common ingredients, along with tropical fruit juices and bitters. Cocktails can be very complicated and dramatic, served in decorated ceramic vessels in the shapes of tikis (called "tiki mugs"), coconut shells or volcanoes among the more popular styles. Cocktails are often garnished with paper cocktail umbrellas, live flowers or plastic animals. A "scorpion bowl" is a popular cocktail that is served in a ceramic bowl for communal drinking. A variation on the scorpion bowl is the "volcano bowl." Also a communal drink, the volcano bowl drink is traditionally served in a ceramic bowl (similar to a scorpion bowl), but with a raised reservoir in the center, generally resembling a volcano. The reservoir is typically filled with 151 proof alcohol and lit on fire.

History

Drinks

See also