Go West for Mod Movie Monday - Rio Bravo, 1959

Ask anyone who digs old movies and old westerns about this flick, and the response will be something around the same as if you ask them if they are hip to Miles or Bird…oh, yeahhhhh!

Rio Bravo, 1959

Dean Martin

is a good old-fashioned cowboy movie with a little twist: The cast. Here you have John Wayne leading Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson,Ward Bond and Walter Brennan (plus Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez for comic relief). Wow. Add to that some really good writing, some intense scenes where predicting the outcome is almost impossible, and plenty of evil bad guys and you’ve got the makings of a classic flick. Even the side romance between the 51-year-old Wayne and 26-year-old Dickinson are believable and fun.

The story is a somewhat typical cowboy job: Wayne, the Sheriff, is trying to keep his dusty frontier town together while fighting against a cattle baron who, as all cattle barons in old westerns tend to be, is an evil, murdering SOB. His brother murders a cowpoke in a saloon in cold blood and is locked up by the Sheriff. Cattle baron brother sends bad guys to get him out. Wayne is helped only by the recovering drunk Dude (Martin), an aging deputy with a bad leg (Brennan), a very young gunslinger (Nelson), a somewhat crazy chick (Dickinson) and a Mexican hotel owner with a funny way of talking. Oh, and Wayne totes a Winchester Saddle Ring Carbine everywhere he goes. Kookie.

By the way, you get a free song too, a duet with Dino and Ricky Nelson. Whoever thought they’d sing together?

Food & Booze: Whisky. Just Whisky. Or Beer. This is what cowboys drink in the movies. No one really eats anything so why not try an easy chili recipe. There’s this thing out there called Wick Fowler’s “2-Alarm Chili Kit”. It won the 1967 Texas Chili Cook-off and has everything in it you need to make a really good chili except beef, beans and stewed tomatoes. Just follow the directions and you can’t miss. I first used this stuff back in 1987 to make Chili for a Halloween party while watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, a really bad movie that had the cannibalistic characters making - you guessed it - chili, with human meat. Funny, huh? Here’s the trailer for Rio Bravo…

-Tiki Chris P. reporting from the Last Chance Saloon, in an oasis somewhere in the middle of cowboy-days Florida

Tiki Drink for the Weekend: The Sweet Caroline

Ok, I know I’m a little slow on the draw this week for your Tiki Drink Recipe. Sometimes part of living the Tiki Lifestyle means sleeping until 2pm for no reason.

I made this one up, but I’m sure I’m not the first to mix these ingredients together. I call it a Sweet Caroline. It’s got a nice sweet taste, with citrus kick. Kind of like this girl named Caroline I used to know.

1 oz Midori
1 oz Amaretto
1 oz Sour Mix
Fill with Orange Juice

Pour over ice in a large glass and stir. Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry. Pretty simple, very tasty! The sugars seem to make the booze hit your head faster than you’d think, so be careful with this one, kids.

-Tiki Chris reporting from under the table at Tiki Lounge Talk

Tropical Storm may squash weekend plans in Cocoa Beach

If you follow me on Twitter or The Retro Tiki Lounge on Facebook, you’ve probably heard we’ve been planning a trip to the Space Coast, Cocoa Beach for this weekend. It’s been an up-and-down/on-and-off-and-back-on-again krazy kind of plan. We were originally going to swing up to Orlando (with a stop in Cocoa) on a work/trip, but the work part got canceled. We managed to rescue the Cocoa Beach part of the trip, but several events in the last week (flat tire, sudden influx of rescue puppies and kittens, dates moved on paying gigs with the little lady, etc etc) have severely screwed things up.

As of yesterday, we were all set up for a cruise up to Cocao today. Then this goofy Tropical storm, which is all the way down in the Caribbean, decided to fling itself into a big mess of rain clouds and shot some rain all the way up the East Coast of Florida. So as of now, 10:30 am on Friday, here in Fort Lauderdale is a big soggy wreck of a day, and our sources north tell us Cocoa Beach isn’t much different.

One thing you should know about Florida: The best stuff to do is outdoors. Even the Tiki Bars are all either open-air, on the water (Like Islamorada) or have great tropical gardens (like the Mai Kai). So zipping around in the rain is maximum dullsville.

Cocoa Beach is full of kool old ’50s motels and Tiki-ness. It’s like you can’t get drunk and fall over without hitting a Tiki. There are great Tiki Carvers up there, and lots of fun beachy stuff. And the plan was to take lots of pix and post a report on this seaside Tiki lovers’ getaway. But I’m afraid this TS-Bonnie is going to squash the plans on this foray into vintage-meets-neo tiki culture. It’s no fun driving three hours on I-95 in buckets of rain, even in the sleek little Cruiser with the aquatreds, especially if it’s to spend most of the time sitting in the motel room waiting for the rain to stop. So, we’ll see how it plays out today. If Bonnie bows out by tonight, we’ll swing up tomorrow instead of today. If not, this weekend will be a great time to catch up on some writing.

More to come…

Later Gators.

-Tiki Chris, soaking wet and not packed yet, reporting from under the overhang of the lanai at Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar. Tiki Lounge Talk, The Tiki Culture Blog for Hep Kats and Swingin’ Kittens.

The Manhattan: Weekend Cocktails at the Tiki Bar

Ready for the weekend kids? We sure are at the Tiki Bar! Since out last post was on some sophisticated Latin Jazz, lets Jazz the weekend up with some sophisticated cocktails…

The typical Manhattan calls for rye whiskey and sweet vermouth. Here are two twists on the original:

Bourbon Manhattan

3/4 oz sweet vermouth
2 1/2 oz good bourbon whiskey (I’d go with Maker’s Mark)
1 dash bitters
1 maraschino cherry
1 twist orange peel

Pour the booze and bitters over the rocks and stir gently. Add the Cherry; twist the orange into the drink and ditch the peel. A little sweeter and smoother than the traditional drink.

The Manhattan Cocktail. Old-style is served in a rocks glass.

Southern Comfort Manhattan

1 1/2 oz. Southern Comfort
1/2 oz dry vermouth
dash bitters
Cherry

Stir with cracked ice, strain into a glass (also good on the rocks). Drop in the cherry and you’re good to go with a ’60s style cocktail that will make the southern belles melt.

Either of these splashes would be a great accompaniment to the sultry tunes presented in our previous post.

-Tiki Chris reporting from the Tiki Bar

Memories from Hukilau 2010, Fort Lauderdale

There’s nothing like getting a bunch of swingin’ kats and kittens together with island music, vintage threads and lots of rum. Well kids, let me tell you, his year’s Hukilau didn’t disappoint. From tattooed chicks in short skirts and flower leis to guys wearing palm tree shirts and short-brimmed fedoras, the eclectic crowd that swamped Fort Lauderdale was more fun than a barrel of fez-wearing monkeys.

That's me, Tiki Chris with three of my best girls - Colleen, Shannon & Molly

If you’ve been to an event like this (or to this one) you know how much fun can be packed into a couple of rum-drenched days. If you haven’t then you should definitely plan to. Our presence at the event was truncated due to a busy work schedule, but we still had a fantastic time on Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night. Read the rest of this entry »