TIKI CULTURE

The Story of Aquarama at The Hukilau 2011!

Vintage Roadside, the hep cats who bring you lots of fun photos and vintage-style T-shirts from around the country, will present The Story of Aquarama at this year’s Hulilau in Fort Lauderdale, Florida!

From their invitation:

Please join us, along with very special guest Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid, as we present “Beautiful Girls that Live like Fish: The Story of Aquarama” at the 10th Annual Hukilau!

You’ll also have a chance to ask Marina all those questions about what it’s like to work as an underwater performer!

Tickets can be purchased at the Hukilau website here:

http://www.thehukilau.com/2011/attend/

This is going to be a swingin’ time, and I hope to see a lot of you kats & kittens there!

-Tiki Chris, reporting from the pool.

2011 Hukilau (Fort Lauderdale) Website is now Live!

Ok swingin’ Tiki lovin’ kats and chicks, it’s time to start thinking of June, and the 10th Anninversary of

The Hukilau!

in beautiful, sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

This year’s Hukilau will take place from June 9th through 12th at Bahia Mar and Bahia Cabana Hotels just across from the white sandy beaches of the famous South Florida resort town.

This year promises even more great entertainment, great art, great gifts and great exotic cocktails. For a complete list of events, etc. visit The Hukilau website at www.thehukilau.com/2011.

Me, our friend Molly and my wife Colleen at the Mai Kai, Hukilau 2010.

This year also marks the 55th Anniversary of the World’s Greatest (IMHO) Tiki Bar, The Mai Kai. As always, the Saturday night extravaganza will feature dinner and Polynesian show at the Mai Kai. It’s fantabulous, kids!

I am also very excited to announce that yours truly, Tiki Chris will be helping out the fine folks at The Hukilau this year as Vendor Coordinator. So if you’re setting up shop at The Hukilau, I’ll be talking to you soon. For the rest of you kids, I’ll be there all four days so look me up! I’ll be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt

-Tiki Chris reporting from a cabana on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Tiki News: Hukilau 2011, June 9-12, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Just Announced! Hukilau 2011 Tickets On Sale Now!

Hey swingin’ Tikiphiles, here’s a great way to start the New Year…

Mark your calendars for June 9th through 12th for The Hukilau 2011 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

This year marks the 10th Anniversary of The Hukilau and the 55th Anniversary of the Mai Kai, so it will certainly be a swingin’ shindig. But Tickets for the events online here. The Official Hukilau website with all the details will be coming soon.

To book a room in Fort Lauderdale one of the two official hotels:

Bahia Cabana: 954-254-1555
You can book online with the Bahia Mar HERE.

I’ll have more info posted as it becomes available. Mahalos to you all in the New Year, see you in June!

-Tiki Chris

Weekend Tiki Cocktail: Singapore Sling; Wreck Bar Tonight

Another great summer drink for your Tiki Bar is an old favorite…

The Singapore Sling

Even the name of this bright red cocktail evokes the essence of exotic, taking you to mysterious, far-away places without leaving your bar stool. Developed at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore around the turn of the century, a modified version of the original is still served there today.

Here’s the old fashioned version of the recipe, from back in the days when sophisticated cocktails meant sophisticated ingredients:

2 oz gin
3/4 oz Cherry Heering
2 tsp Benedictine
2 tsp Cointreau
2 oz pineapple juice
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
2 dashes pomegranate grenadine
1 dash Angostura bitters
Soda water
Maraschino cherry
Pineapple wedge
Orange wheel

Throw together everything except the soda and garnish in a shaker. (If you’re not sure which ingredients are the garnish, please put down the shaker and ask an adult to supervise.) Shake it up,and strain into a hurricane or highball glass with a few rocks of ice. Top it off with a splash soda water. Garnish with a cherry, a pineapple slice, and orange skewered on one of those little plastic pirate swords.

The Raffels Hotel in Singapore, Birthplace of the Singapore Sling

This less interesting but still very groovy tasting alternative is much more popular today, and a hell of a lot easier to concoct. Generally if you order a sling today, you’ll get a nice red gin drink. It’s good stuff.

1 dash  Cherry Liqueur
4 oz  Club Soda
1 oz  Gin
0.5 oz  Grenadine
0  cracked Ice
0  cubes Ice
2 oz  bottled Sour mix

Toss everything into the shaker except the soda and ice cubes and shake, shake, shake Senora. Strain over the rocks in a hurricane glass and ad the soda. Then garnish as above. Make sure you use the pirate sword or it’s not a sling. A little plastic monkey or mermaid on the side of the glass is an added bonus.

Speaking of Mermaids…

Mermaids at the Wreck Bar Tonight, 6:15pm, Fort Lauderdale Yankee Clipper Hotel

Mermaids at the Wreck Bar, Yankee Clipper

We’ll be sipping Singapore Slings at the Wreck Bar tonight as we watch the enchanting Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid and her pod of sea lovelies swimming it up in the hotel pool. It’s always fun to watch the mermaids do their underwater antics. If you’re Fort Lauderdale, stop on by!

-Tiki Chris Pinto reporting from behind the bar at Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar, in the kool little corner of my lanai.

4th of July, Tiki Style

So another Fourth of July is here, and that means that 200 and something years ago our fathers got drunk on mulled wine with little umbrellas in it and decided to start a country. They probably should have started with something smaller, like maybe a country club, but I guess it all worked out in the end.

Here in Florida the 4th of July means fireworks. Everywhere. They sell them on the side of the street, and I don’t mean the little cherry bombs, I mean the big Chinese ones with a bunch of warnings you can’t read because they’re all in Mandarin and there’s pix of dragons on them belching fire and burning little villages down. Those ones.

One of the thing I hated about living in the North East (Jersey) was their aversion to fireworks (or pretty much anything fun, for that matter.) I remember one year, late 80s or early 90s, Atlantic City BANNED Fireworks (the professional ones I mean, not just bottle rockets) because some yahoo got his hand blown off the year before. Imagine that, the World’s Playground not having a city fireworks display because some misguided, power-drunk fire marshal got to have his stupid way. Donald Trump fixed that a year later by throwing a ton of dough at the city and the media, and getting the decision reversed. He the paid $1,000,000 to have his own private fireworks display shot up off the end of Ocean One Pier in Atlantic City. Guess who got to organize/decorate for the party? Yeah, me. It was fantastic. There was a steak buffet. Leave it to The Donald to have a steak buffet.

Colleen & I at the Mai Kai

Boy, what a digression. Anyhoo, we’re celebrating the weekend (trying to) by hitting the Mai Kai tonight for drinks. They’re having half-priced drinks 10- midnight if you order Seven Tiki Rum. Tomorrow we’re planning on hitting Fort Lauderdale Beach for the “Ford of July” Spectacular. (I’m not making that up. Ford is sponsoring it. Ford of July. Washington is spinning in his grave. After all, he was a Chevy man.)

After the beach we’ll probably hit a diner for an All-American hamburger. What better way to celebrate freedom, huh?

Fireworks. Yeah.

I know when we get home the street will be so filled with smoke from home fireworks that we’ll have to crawl along to get to the driveway. Seriously, fireworks are supposed to remind us of the cannon that were being fired during the Revolutionary War. Well, with the booms, lights, smoke and smell of cordite in the air yeah, it’s kind of like the outskirts of a war zone. But fun. Kind of odd, especially if you’re a vet, huh? But I digress again.

Anyway Happy Independence day to all you swinin’ kats and kittens. Thanks for dropping by the Tiki Lounge! Hey, if you dig it here, check out the Retro Tiki Lounge on Facebook. Kool videos, comments, info and more daily.

See you at the bar. -Tiki Chris for the Tiki Culture Blounge