For more than 80 years , cocktail bars from Los Angeles to New York City have been steady slingingrum , yield and tiny paper umbrella to client depend for Polynesia in a trash . And after the Ne - colored sirup - turkey bastardization of the 1980s and 1990s , the last decade has see a glorious worldwidetiki renaissance . Today , flamboyant yield drinks are a staple on high - end cocktail menus around the humanity , and a mob of highly focused tiki joint have sprouted , fromSmuggler ’s Cove(San Francisco ) toLatitude 29(New Orleans ) toThree Dots and a Dash(Chicago ) , andMother of Pearl ( New York City ) .
Unlike many cocktail styles with origins shroud in mystery , tiki ’s beginnings are fair well documented . It all fail back to two men , who each started a bar in the 1930s .
Don the Beachcomber
When 27 - year - old Ernest Gantt opened the first Don the Beachcomber fix in 1934 , it was just a small 24 - seat watering hole in Los Angeles . A traveler by nature , Gantt had accrued a respectable ingathering of betting odds and ends he found wash up on the beach and elsewhere during South Pacific excursions . He used those treasures to decorate his tropical safety valve .
His drinking , while trademark as “ Polynesian cocktail , ” were actually Polynesian - inspired SoCal cocktail made with ingredient likefalernumand fresh , local produce . They were Modern , they were clear-cut , and they were wildly pop . Thanks to both the eclectic interior decoration and Gantt ’s delectable “ rhum rhapsodies , ” the bar quickly enchant on , and Gantt eventually gave in fully to his tropic career by changing his name to Donn Beach .
During WWII , Beach shipped out with the U.S. Air Force , leaving his bar in the care of his ex - wife Cara Irene . Not long after , he was injured when his ship was attacked by a German atomic number 92 - boat . He spend the rest of his enlistment doing what he did best — melt down rest camp for recovering airmen in place like the French Riviera and Venice . Upon render to the U.S. , Beach found out that Irene had been busy . She had expanded Don the Beachcomber from one to 16 locations across California and a few other states . After signing on as a consultant for the new strand , Beach packed his bags and headed for Hawaii , where he drop the eternal sleep of his daytime man a bar on Waikiki Beach .
Smuggler’s Cove tiki bar.|bittermelon/Flickr
Beach ’s drinks were nothing short of rotatory . We can give thanks him for cocktail like theZombie , Pearl DiverandThree Dots and a Dash , as well as indispensable spiced syrups andmixesstill found in tiki recipes today . We can also give thanks Beach for making it virtually inconceivable to track down those defining formula .
Beach was loathe to partake his recipe with others . The formulas for many of his signature cocktails , particularly the Zombie , were mysteriously take in by act bear on to bottles on his bar . It may sound paranoid , but it was also hardheaded . Other bars often tried to poach Beach ’s bartenders to learn his closed book , but it never work . Beach did n’t teach anyone except his most trusted and loyal employee how to make his proprietary cocktails , sirup and mixes .
Beach ’s drinks remained largely mysterious throughout his career , and he took some of his secret with him to the tomb when he die in 1989 at the age of 81 . But in the mid - aughts , bartender and tiki aficionado Jeff “ Beachbum ” Berry was finally able totrack downthe original recipe for the Zombie with the help of Jennifer Santiago , the girl of one of the barkeeper Beach lease in 1937 , and Mike Buhen , bartender atTiki - Tiin San Francisco and boy of one of the original Don the Beachcomber bartender . Now , Beach ’s legacy endure on , not only in the rediscovered Zombie recipe , but also in the forward-looking tiki renaissance — if not for him , tiki would n’t be the delightfully kitschy , rum - soaked movement it is today .
Trader Vic
Victor Bergeron ( afterward known as Trader Vic ) was a fan of Don the Beachcomber from the beginning — so much so that he even accept to swiping a few ideas from the Los Angeles hotspot to expend in his own Oakland streak , Hinky Dink ’s .
“ I felt I could do it better , ” Bergeron oncesaid .
In 1937 , Bergeron transform Hinky Dink ’s from a modest legal profession into the tiki den know as Trader Vic ’s , a moniker that came from Bergeron ’s habit of convert boozing and food for thought for flotsam and jetsam that client bring in , which he used to decorate the measure .
Bergeron ’s most famous credit conception is theMai Tai , a blend of two rums , lime juice , orange curaçao andorgeat . He allegedly came up with the famous formula in 1944 , but there ’s a rumor that it was one of the drink ’s he lifted from Don the Beachcomber . Bergeron always insist otherwise , though . “ I uprise the Mai Tai , ” he once tell in an interview with The New York Times . “ Anybody who says I did n’t create this drink is a crumb . ”
Bergeron is also credited with creating tiki classic like theFog Cutterand El Diablo , and he is creditworthy for one of the main tiki tome , Trader Vic ’s Book of Food & Drink . It was the first in a series of tiki - centrical recipe book he went on to author . Throughout the rest of his life , Bergeron continued to expound his democratic tiki haven into a multi - million dollar chain with 25 locations around the world . In 1951 , he even followed his Hero of Alexandria , admirer and contender , Donn Beach , to Hawaii , where he opened a Trader Vic ’s in Honolulu .
Not only did he cement himself in the tiki hall of renown with his touch drinks and successful restaurant chain , but , to top it all off , Bergeron was a fabled storyteller . His most renowned dinner political party anecdote demand his wooden leg . ( He lose his leg as a child due to T.B. . ) He would often secern tales about how he lost his leg to a shark and would even tug a knife into it to get reaction out of invitee . That ’s hard-core tiki .
Since his death in 1984 — just a few week before Trader Vic ’s 50th day of remembrance — Bergeron ’s mini tropic empire has dwell on with 15 location around the world , include in Oman , Seychelles , Saudi Arabia and Japan . The man who began as a tiki imitator managed to take Beach ’s original construct to a global level , bringing colored cocktails and pu - pu platters to anyone with a discernment for the tropics .
Thanks to both Beach and Bergeron , tiki became more than just a cocktail style . Those two piece made it a lifestyle . The next clock time you find yourself bear a Mai Tai , be sure to leaven your tiki mug to the two original tiki masters .
