TIKI CULTURE

Puka Punch - Your Weekend Tiki Cocktail

Here’s one of those crazy Tiki bar drinks that we love to build because it uses just about everything behind the bar including the sink. Rum, rum, and more rum, fruit juices, Falernum…mix it all together and you get one of those drinks that is fun to make, looks impressive to your pals, and tastes pretty damned good. Plus it reminds me of the Puca rabbit Harvey, and that makes me smile.

Puka Punch

2 oz. white rum
3⁄4 oz. dark Jamaican rum
3⁄4 oz. 151-proof rum (optional)
3⁄4 oz. fresh orange juice
3⁄4 oz. pineapple juice
3⁄4 oz. passion fruit syrup
2 tsp. honey mixed with
2 tsp. hot water, chilled
1⁄4 oz. Falernum
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 oz. fresh lime juice
Pineapple slice, orange wedge,
and maraschino cherry

Toss 1 1⁄2 cups of ice cubes into a blender and crush em up. Add all ingredients except the 151, blend on high speed. Pour into a Highball glass or tall Tiki mug. Then slowly pour the 151 rum over back of a (vintage) bar spoon into cocktail. Garnish with pineapple, orange, and a cherry on a little plastic sword. Cool drink!

-Tiki Chris P. reporting from Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar, on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, South Florida. Watch out for the alligators.

Painkiller Cocktail Recipe - Your Weekend Tiki Drink

The Painkiller

As far as exotic cocktails go, The Painkiller ranks as one of the most famous…and most ordered…at the Tiki Bar. Along with the Navy Grog, Zombie, and of course the Mai Tai, The Painkiller has become one of the drinks most closely associated with Tiki. Kind of funny, when you realize the drink wasn’t concocted until the early 1970s…a time when the Tiki Bar craze was already beginning to fade.

Before the recipe I have to make a note that Pusser’s Rum, a brand that’s only been around for about 30 years, claimed and trademarked the cocktail “Painkiller”, claiming it was originally created using their rum. Uh…well, the Tiki community takes issue with that claim, but Pusser’s does own the trademark. Whatever…use any rum you want at home. I prefer Meyers for this blend.

The Painkiller Cocktail Recipe

2 oz dark rum
1 oz cream of coconut
4 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice

Shake all ingredients in a shaker until nice and frothy. Strain over crushed ice in a Tiki mug or Collins glass and garnish with a chunk of fresh pineapple…an orange wheel and cherry are nice with it, too.

Painkiller Tiki Bar, NYC

Many of have probably heard of this drink in the last year as it, and an NYC Tiki Bar that went by the same name, made minor headlines when Pusser’s sued the New York City Tiki bar “Painkiller” over rights to the name. It seems what Pusser’s was really pussed-off about was that they weren’t using their brand of rum…again, whatever. The bar had to comply with Pusser’s demands, and is now called PKNY. The REAL news to this story is that…hey! Another Tiki Bar opened in New York City! From what I’ve read it’s not a traditional Tiki Bar, but is still keeping the spirit alive.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Tiki Bar! Hess Trucks & Charlie Brown

The first Hess truck, 1963

Thanksgiving in the subtropics is a little different than it is for most people. For instance, today I put the top down on the convertible and drove down to the Hess station to buy a toy Hess Truck.

When I was a kid, we’d get up extra early on Thanksgiving, drive down to the Log Cabin Diner in West Atlantic City and have breakfast (they were one of the few places open). It was right next to the Hess Station…and we’d have breakfast there because the Hess Trucks came out on Thanksgiving Day. The Hess station opened at 8am, and there was always a line of about 50 people waiting in line to get a truck. We waited in this line for several years in a row, until we realized that line fizzled out around 9. So we’d go to the diner, have breakfast and wait for the line to slow down. Once it was down to about 5 people, one of us would go get in line, buy a truck, and return to breakfast.

If you didn’t get a Hess Truck on opening day, chances are you wouldn’t get one at all that year.

Things are a little different now…they trucks come out on November 11, and you can always get one online. Oh…and I remember when they were $4.95. Now they’re 28 clams.

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

One thing that never changes is Charlie Brown…We’ve been watching the “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” since it came out in 1973. Of course back then you had to get the TV Guide and bookmark the page for the date and time. In the 80’s we video taped it, so we didn’t have to worry about missing it. In the 90s we bought the video tape, and that’s what we still watch every year.

What a masterpiece of mangling holiday traditions! What kid wouldn’t want a dinner of popcorn, toast and jellybeans, prepared and served by his dog? I have to admit, at least twice over the years we’ve had a similar Thanksgiving dinner…once on purpose, for fun.

If you haven’t seen CB’s Thanksgiving, you’re missing out on a real treat. You can catch the whole episode of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on YouTube.

The house smells like turkey. We’ve got the air conditioning on because it’s 78° outside. We’ll have our traditional little turkey dinner in the dining room, then have drinks at the Tiki Bar on the lanai.

From us here in the sunny land of South Florida, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

The Bayou Slime Cocktail - Your Weekend Tiki Drink Recipe

The Bayou Slime

With Halloween fast approaching, it’s imperative to have a spooky cocktail or two waiting in the wings. Zombies, Blue Devils and Vampire’s Blood Martinis are perfect for the Halloween-decorated Tiki Bar, but to really raise the “bar” you need a nice gooey

Bayou Slime

A true Tiki drink, the Bayou Slime mixes rum with spiced cordial syrup and fresh mint to give you a drink that’s both tasty and kind of gross.

Ingredients:
•    2 oz Dark Rum
•    6-8 fresh mint leaves
•    1/2 oz Fee Brothers Spiced Cordial Syrup
•    1 egg white

Our house is fully decorated for Halloween. Now we just need to mix the drinks.

Muddle mint leaves together with the syrup. Make sure the leaves are crushed. (Save a few leaves for the garnish) Throw everything together in a shaker with ice and shake it up real good. Strain into a martini glass and add some fresh crushed mint leaves on top as a garnish. The egg makes the concoction kind of frothy and slimy, and the mint makes it look like it’s covered in moss. To make it even spookier, add a couple of drops of green food coloring, or serve in one of those cool skull Tiki mugs.

Happy Halloween!

-Tiki Chris, reporting from the Haunted Castle

Early Autumn Cocktail Recipes: Your Weekend Tiki Bar Drink

Early Autumn Cocktail

While the rest of the country is getting that September chill, it’s 90° here in sunny south Florida!

Since it’s Early Autumn, I thought it would be kool to kick out the

Early Autumn Cocktail Recipe.

Early Autumn is also a very keen jazz standard, immortalized by the swinging saxes of Woody Herman’s Heard (see the video below). This is a great song to play while you mix this interesting cocktail:

Recipe for 8 servings

•    1 1/2 cups vodka
•    1 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 5-6 lemons)
•    1/2 cup Galliano
•    1/4 cup honey liqueur (such as Barenjager)
•    flowering fresh thyme sprig, for garnish.

Combine in a large shaker or pitcher with ice, shake or stir briskly. Pour over the rocks into small tumblers, pony glasses or cordial glasses and garnish with a sprig of thyme.

For a more involved, even more Autumny concoction, try this modern mixology take on the Early Autumn Cocktail (recipe from About.com):

•    1.5 oz. Bombay Sapphire infused with dried pear and apples (click for recipe)
•    1/2 oz. Lucid absinthe
•    1 oz. local apple cider
•    1/2 oz. pear brandy (Adam recommends: Massenez Williams Poire Brandy)
•    1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
•    2 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate bitters
•    Ginger beer
•    cinnamon stick for garnish
•    lemon peel for garnish

Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes and shake it up. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice and garnish with a lemon peel and cinnamon stick. Wow, huh?

Here’s the song, Woody Herman featuring Stan Getz on sax.