Jeff Berry is coming out with a new book, and has worked up a presentation about the origins of the Mai Tai that he's done a few times, and is scheduled to give in Hawaii soon. Here in Seattle, Vessel recently held a fun little Tiki Night. Tiki-Kon is currently going on with a "Tiki Speakeasy" theme. And who knows what else is happening in the world of Tiki.
I was just curious, from a "quality cocktail" standpoint, what is your favorite recipe, or experience with Tiki (or as Jeff would like us to refer to them "exotic"... no, not erotic, EXOTIC... sheesh...) cocktails or even Tiki Establishments?
I for one have a lot of respect for Tiki cocktails (as should be apparent from the several tiki-cocktails I've featured on my show). And see a lot of culinary potential in them. For the most part, I feel they are more in the "punch" category then they are "cocktail", but that doesn't mean that they can't have flavors which capture the imagination.
-Robert
We have enjoyed Mai Tai's many times - had them last night for international tiki day, Hurricanes (perhaps not strictly a Tiki drink) but we got our recipe from one of Jeff Berry's books,the Fogcutter recipes that are in "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails" and the various Zombie recipes that Jeff Berry has unearthed.
As a class of drinks, while they are extremely fun, they are expensive and complex to prepare, so I've been hoping to find a 'short list' of people's favorite tiki drinks rather than just getting lost in the jungle in Jeff Berry's books
Enlightenment is knowing that what was intended was a party - Vic Baranco.
More philosophy at Cocktails at 80
Dear R,
The fact that I am a huge Tiki fan is well documented for several reasons - the all encompassing 'fun' and breadth of Tiki Culture as well as the use of fine liquors.
That's one of the reasons I got involved with Trailer Happiness, Mahiki and other bars and have done what I can to push and promote Tiki as and when I can in my various roles around the world.
So when another Tiki Geek, Mr Brian Miller at Death and Co said he was trying to invent a Gin Zombie I was intrigued... and when he called the finished drink The Winchester I was hugely flattered... I think its a great "Modern" Tiki drink myself.
The Winchester (Brian Miller, Death & Co, NYC)25ml Tanqueray London Dry Gin25ml Old Tom Gin25ml Miller's Westbourne Strength Gin20ml lime juice20ml grapefruit juice20ml St Germain elderflower liqueur12.5ml home made grenadine7ml home made ginger syrup1 dash angostura bittersshake with 3 ice cubes and strain into a Tiki mug.
enjoy
aw
Now THAT is what I like to see, a nice exotic cocktail based on gin! But why did he name it after a rifle?
Because they both get loaded, then start shooting from the hip, repeatedly.
What else is happening in the world of tiki? Come see me in November.
www.smugglerscovesf.com
Review of my recent cocktail dinner with Jeff at Tales:
http://talesblog.com/2009/07/29/spirited-dinner-at-gw-fins-with-beachbum-berry-and-martin-cate/
I'm also giving two talks this weekend in San Diego at the annual Tiki Oasis Seminar, one about pairing rum and chocolate, and one about the history of brand-specific rum drinks, whether they originate as the choice of the bartender who invented the drink, or canny marketing. Both talks are sold out. www.tikioasis.com
Cheers!
martin
www.martincate.com
For any, hilariously, outrageously lost Tiki fans who, by a bizarre comination of optimism, mapreading incompetance and sheer debility in the face of intoxicating substances, may find themselves in Amsterdam on, say, the 18th and 19th of August, The Winchester may be enjoyed in all it's glory at door 74 during the short-lived yet intensely pleasant guest-bartender-ship of A. Winchester, for once to be found for an entire shift - not just an hour - behind a bar that is neither on-stage nor temporary, without benefit of either a white jacket, a microphone, a team of willing junior brand managers nor even a barback: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18362718/Two-Nights-of-Mr-Angus-Winchester-at-Door-74
My absolute favorite exotic would be the Mai Tai (Trader Vic's recipe). I just don't think anything else can beat it. Beyond that is a good Navy Grog or Painkiller. I'm actually working on a post about where the Mai Tai fits in on the "classic to exotic" scale of drinks.
I know that Tiki Oasis is going on in San Diego this weekend and that Martin will be there.
As far as locations near me, there's the infamous Tiki Ti, still going strong after all these years. Wonderful drinks that make me wish I didn't live so far south.
I have to second others that the Mai Tai is a classic in all senses of the word. I'll also throw in the Straits Sling as a proto-Tiki drink. As a dark horse, I'd nominate Colonel Beach's Plantation Punch. Jeff served it at a Museum of the American Cocktail event a couple of months ago. After consulting with him again at Tales, I'll be serving it for a group of college friends gathering in Las Vegas this fall. (We're staying at the Sahara which was the site of Don the Beachcomber's - Las Vegas, you see.)
Mahalo!
I've always thought that the Straits Sling and its decadent offspring, the Singapore Sling, were proto-Tiki drinks even if I can't show any likely connection (real or imagined) to Donn Beach & Trader Vic.
I think the Tiki drink category, more than any other, depends on the depth of the bartender.
Go into a hundred random bars and order a Martini, a Manhattan, a Whiskey Sour. There will be a few that are epic fails, made without enough vermouth or with wilted ice. But most will at least resemble what you ordered.
Try that with a Mai Tai, or a Zombie. You'll get a hundred laughably bad cocktails, made with random ingredients ranging from apple juice to X-Rated, Mystique, or Windex-colored Alizé. Rums will have been chosen blindly, and one fruit juice is considered to be as good as another, especially when nobody has passion fruit, papaya, etc. Not one will be a drinkable cocktail. It's a miracle the category has survived at all since the life went out of it back in the 70s.
To get an okay tiki drink, you pretty much have to go somewhere special and get a great one. Tiki Ti in Hollywood, Forbidden Island up north. Or to the bar of a great cocktailian who happens to know some great tiki recipes, and has the exoctic ingredients on hand at a "normal" bar.
I certainly like drinking Mai Tais, and make those quite a bit at home.
I've been playing with the frozen Hemingway daquiri, which I found in Grog Log: 2 limes, 1/2 grapefruit, 1/4 oz maraschino, 4 oz white rum, 2 cups crushed ice. Pulse blend for 5 seconds. A nice drink. I also find the AWOL (in several Gary Regan books, a pousse cafe) very tiki-ish.
But in my experience, the nice takeaway from Tiki is the blending of base spirits. The Winchester gets into the spirit of that, with 3 different gins. I'll have to try it!
Wild Bill -- amen, brother!
Angus -- what I love about the Winchester is that Brian is breaking new ground with gin in the same way that Donn Beach did with rums -- blending brands of different character to produce a "dimensionalized" base spirit flavor. I used to explain to people how rum differed from other base spirits because while you'd never think of putting three gins in one drink, you could do that with rum. Thanks to Brian, I have to change my rap now!
Dear J,
I will let Brian know and he will be hugely flattered I am sure to have your approval... it was a long challenge for him to find the right number and range of gins that gave him the flavour complexity he was after...
And I too used to talk about how Rum was the only spirit that we used several marques in a single drink (at trailer we took this to the extreme with three rum daiquirirs etc) but then went to japan and had several Bi-Martinis where they used two gins and as you say, my rap had to change too.
Damn these bartenders and their envelope-shredding creativity! (But thank god too!)
Two-gin Martinis ... brilliant! Do you happen to remember any of the brand pairings?