Alcademics

Oh hey, my latest story for Fine Cooking magazine is online already. 

Tiki Time

Showstopping tiki drinks are back on the menu, and they’re causing quite a stir. Here’s how to create these tasty cocktails at home—don’t forget the swizzle sticks and umbrellas.

by Camper English

Sipping from opposite sides of a cocktail served in a hollowed-out pineapple, a young couple poses for a photo by a waterfall. This isn’t a scene from a Hawaiian vacation in the 1960s, but one I observed earlier this year at Smuggler’s Cove, a buzzing new San Francisco bar. This establishment, and the many others just like it springing up across the country, is a tiki lounge, serving classic Polynesian-themed cocktails. These once-out-of-favor joints and their kitschy cocktails, like the mai tai, zombie, and planter’s punch, are making quite a comeback.

So what makes a cocktail a tiki cocktail? These drinks have several common characteristics.... 

Read the rest of my feature on the return of tiki. 

     

 
 
Not only does it contain thrilling information on tiki, it has recipes from three people you may have heard of:

• Lift Off! by Blair Reynolds, alias Trader Tiki
• Chi Chi Pache by Martin Cate, alias Shoeless Martin Cate
• Barbary Swizzle by Jeff Berry, alias Beachbum Berry