Nope not a Painkiller...

Serious Eats talks about a drink...

Hope for Tiki culture...

One of the real problems with the whole Tiki food and drink thing is that the basics are not really there. Where to find the needful stuff for a real Mai Tai or a Zombie is often a whole lot  problematic!

I long ago gave up drinking Tiki drinks in bars as they were never ever right and sadly most people think that what passes for tropical drink is just bad rum, fruit punch and too much sugar... Face it, it's a lot more than a cute mug and a swizzle stick!

Enter Trader Tiki who is doing stuff right with an interesting product line of ingredients for folks who feel that a Mai Tai should actually taste like a Mai Tai.

Now I suppose we have to add a reefer to needful equipment....

The galley on "So It Goes" is, for want of a better word, spartan. It's a galley that any French Chef would feel comfortable in but provides very little in the way of  "hip" or "faddish" items that seem to take up so much room and never actually get used variety...

For instance, one thing we do not have is a freezer (reefer in nautical speak) and while the idea of a reefer has been on the "might get around to thinking about one of these days" list, it has pretty much stayed in the background as no real compelling reason existed... Well until now!

Friends of mine know that if there is one area of kitsch appeal that always gets my attention, it is things of a TIKI nature.

Seriously, how can you live without an ice cube tray that makes Tiki ice cubes?

Mai Tai Madness...

Why did no one tell me about this? A little lead time and I would have been all over this, I could have been a contender...

More info over at Beach Bum Berry's... Sounds like a LOT of FUN!

Tiki 4th of July...

The 4th of July for me has always meant beach, surfboards and Tiki drinks...

When I was a kid, the whole Tiki bar thing was quite the rage and seriously hip. In these modern times the whole Tiki fad is looked down on by many as a pinnacle of kitsch but it was a LOT of fun, and I'll go on record as saying we could always use a whole lot more FUN!

Plus let's get real... What better place to have your very own movable Tiki Bar than an ocean-going sail boat?

Of course to do it right you need LOTS of RUM! Lucky for us that down here in the Caribbean you can buy a good rum for less than $4 a liter (and you'd be dumb-as-nails to use anything better for Tiki drinks) various fruit juices and some serious Tiki mugs...

I mean you really do need the Tiki mugs as they strike just the right note and the whole point of the excercise is striking the right note! Of course you can always use coconuts and hollowed out pineapples but for me Tiki mugs are the serious stuff (and who wants to waste good drinking time hollowing out a pineapple?).

Of course you need the recipes because, while most things on boats are not rocket science, mixology of the Tiki variety IS and before you are ready to come up with your own special signature Tiki/Boat drink it is best to spend a bit of time learning from the masters and working on the classics!

"Sipping Safari" is a great place to start but any of the Beachbum Berry books will do...

I would be remiss in not mentioning that for a proper on-board Tiki party that the old T-shirt is something of a faux pas and that at the least a real Aloha shirt is the minmum for Tiki chic (leis however are considered to be something of an over kill)!

Have a happy 4th...