The manliest beer bottle opener in the history of time. No really, guys, this dude makes girlies of us all. You too, Chuck Norris. (Video)

“Making cocktails is a lot more like baking than it is like cooking.” I hear this all the time from bartenders, the point being that precise measurement is vital to making balanced drinks. A bit too much citrus, too little vermouth, and your finely crafted, expensive cocktail isn’t is as good as it should be. This is why we encourage bartenders and home mixologists to use a jigger. It’s more consistent and delivers better results than “free-pouring” as the bartending academies instruct.
-Jacob Grier

That is how one of my favorite bartenders and bar bloggers starts a new post today that challenges us all to really take drinks to the ultimate level of consistency and quality. Jacob notes that volumetric measurements are problematic, especially the very small measures used in such things as dashes. The solution that people who care about results use when baking is to use a scale.

Go read the whole thing at Jacob’s site. I will note that one reason for measuring the mass of ingredients instead of volume in baking has to do with the compressibility of powdered ingredients like flour. Now, I don’t have a lot of flour-based recipes in my repertoire, but I would not put it past some of our more creative artistes. And more to the point, the real problem in cocktails comes with the smallest of ingredient amounts, such as dashes or drops. If you can’t even count on one bottle of Angostura to the next delivering the same amount in a dash, imagine from one brand to the next. A high-quality digital scale is the answer to this issue!

I will note that the OXO scale shown in Jacob’s picture is not up to the task that he himself lays out for measuring such amounts as .666g of bitters, as it is accurate only to the whole gram. The PeguWife and I have a retired Olympic scale that was first used for weighing the shoes of beach volleyball players. It is sensitive to the thousandth of the gram, so it wasn’t precise enough for the outfits….

via FoxSports.

Since a scale like ours is in limited supply, I’d suggest something like this Ohaus Scout Pro Portable Scale for professional bars, as it appears to be robust enough to handle the rough, wet environment. It is a bit expensive, but only two ought to be enough for most any bar. For the home, I’d suggest something cheaper, like this American Weigh Gemini.

I’m excited by this whole new world of precision in my cocktails, and I expect to see scales in use all over on the next calendar year! It really isn’t that much more exacting effort to use this system. Let’s hope everyone starts expecting this, so the people who do will get exactly the drink they deserve.

Cheers, y’all.

Tiki torches for the modern ultra-contemporary home (Video). If you have to blend your primitive with the modern in your Tiki decor as I do, these might make an excellent merge point.

Most all pictures in this post can be embiggened by clicking.

That is me, slaving away meticulously in my lab, working to bring you the most rigorously researched cocktail knowledge imaginable, eleven months out of the year. But February is Tiki Month, and my beautifully appointed and equipped Basement Bar just doesn’t seem right, now does it? During the first few Tiki Months, I made do with the transformation provided by a nice Aloha shirt, and maybe some Martin Denny on the Hi-Fi iPod. Last year, I had the guts to do my first Tiki party, and I made a first pass at decorating the place. The overwhelming majority of what I used was from Party City, i.e. vinyl, plastic, and cardboard. For my non-Tikiphile buddies, it looked great, and I was happy with it. But face it, an initiate of the Fraternal Order of Moai would have taken one look, patted me on the head and said, “isn’t that nice!”

This year, I really wanted to step up the game, especially since I plan to have a steady stream of guests all month. The results are far more impressive, with lots of natural materials. It still isn’t up to the magnificent home Tiki bars you can find in this forum at Tiki Central, alas. But I really love my Basement Bar, and want to have it back unchanged at the end of the month. I restricted myself to reusable decorations that do not damage my walls, cabinetry or fixtures. Nothing permanent but the memories.
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This didn’t come out as well as I had hoped, but I’ll share it anyway. I used my DLSR to do a time-lapse video of several stages of my Tiki transformation of my basement bar, as discussed in these Tiki Month posts, Basement Bar Design #9: Tiki Bars and This Year’s Final Exam. Specifically, I will note that the video does not include the changes in lighting I made, as those frames ended up looking so dark they weren’t worth it. Still it’s fun and illustrative of what I did, so here it is!

{Larger version available at YouTube}

My pace of at least one full post a day throughout this year’s Tiki Month got a little attenuated at the very end, not because I was burning out, but because I was ramping up to and recovering from a sort of doctoral dissertation on all I’ve learned so far about Tiki. We hosted an all-out Tiki party at home for about twenty of our friends. I’ve hosted a ton of cocktail parties, of course. And I’ve thrown in some Tiki elements or drinks from time to time. But I’ve never done the whole magilla, and I wanted to see how much Tiki knowledge I could employ and still pull it off with out some kind of capsize event.

I think it worked. I learned a lot of lessons in the process, and spent more than I needed to to get the effect I wanted and offer the refreshments I required. But I didn’t mess anything up, and I definitely got the atmosphere I was looking for.

I started with modifying my basement bar. I’ve written quite a bit about it already, and it is most definitely not a Tiki bar atmosphere in its bones. It is all black and aluminum and purple, with bright white lights. I started by replacing all the can lights with colored floods. I used red in the areas where guest were to go, and lit the far corners and service/inventory areas in a mix of blue and green. This gave the effect I was looking for of an evening, fire-lit environment. I then removed the barstools from the bar, and ran a long, fairly lush length of rush skirting along the entire length and around the end, enhancing/disguising the top edge with some fake flower leis. The soffit overhead, I covered with vinyl printed like bamboo, and used more to wrap the base of all the pillars in the room. I covered a table along the opposite wall with sand-colored fabric and “planted” two fake palm trees covered in Christmas lights. Two cheap flower door curtains did a remarkably godo job obscuring the messy inventory room in the back.
If I had been making a permanent Tiki bar, I’d have done much the same things, but with all natural, far more sturdy materials.

I also jacked up the ambiance with a few inexpensive hand-carved objects like a nice Tiki Bar sign, a small electric fountain for some running water, and lots of fresh cut orchids all over the place. Again, in a permanent installation, I’d have used potted orchids (with more variety of look), a larger fountain, and more wooden carvings, rather than the cardboard and vinyl Tikis I put in badly lit areas to disguise their nature.
I even dug into the Summer gear and lined the front walkway with burning Tiki torches.

I put in several hours putting together a really good iTunes playlist of Exotica and other Tiki-sounding music. Two songs that I just loved, and which served as some vocal moments in the list were Don Tiki’s Pagan Lust, and An Occasional Man. The music was especially effective in adding depth to the atmosphere I was trying to create, changing the lighting in the basement from merely dim and hard to see, into darkly exotic.

I always create a menu for each cocktail party I throw. That way I can control what I need in stock, and gives me my talking points for the booze portion of the evening’s conversation. I decided this was especially important this party, since most of the guests didn’t know beans about good Tiki drinks and would have had no idea what to order. You can read a copy here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. With this, I was able to keep the ingredients under control, or so I thought. I ended up getting way too much of most fresh ingredients, and my respect for the professionals who run real Tiki bars and manage to stay in business has gone way up. I wanted to do all juices fresh, and while this did show in the drink quality, it also means I have way too much juice lying around to drink in the aftermath. With the right tools, the juicing wasn’t that hard, but guessing the right amounts needed was beyond me this first time.
I bought a few extra stems of orchids for garnish, preserved pineapple tops, and had a bowl of kumquats, which are a great Tiki alternative to cocktail cherries. And I went to the local produce wholesaler to buy gobs of super fresh mint for garnish. I wholeheartedly recommend you find such a business, likely located on the backside of your airport, for times like this. In Columbus, the place I found is Sanfillipo Produce, who have a retail Cash N Carry in their warehouse.
My wife and I both managed to buy, without consulting each other, a box of each fun/tacky garnish toys available in Columbus. As a result I now own approximately two gross of paper cocktail umbrellas. (We probably used five during the party.)

While I planned to spend more time behind the bar this party than most, I still hired my regular bartender Tony to assist. With the planned on number of guests, one guy would certainly not be enough when making the kind of Tiki drinks I was offering. A little more than a year ago, I kinda went postal on some hapless Brooklynite who declared you shouldn’t have a party if you’re too poor to swing a bartender. There are plenty of party formats where you don’t need staff, no matter how large. But if you are having a drinks geek party, (and why would I have anything else?) and you are having more than 10 guests, you won’t get out from behind the bar to enjoy your guests if you mix things yourself.
Tony is particularly great because, while he’s ten times the pro I’d ever aspire to be, he is always willing and able to absorb whatever new tricks and/or schtick I’ve got up my sleeve for my parties. Cultivate at least one good working pro bartender in your town who can work your own occasional parties with or for you.

I placed the barstools around a small high-top table across the room from the bar. This gave me a place to serve the bowls on my menu, with their flaming garnishes and make a big stinking production out it. The fire extinguisher is there but not visible in the picture….
Always have plenty of better than average fake flower leis on hand, in case an actual Tiki shows up at your event….

A few other tips that worked out well:

• A chunk of dry ice is a cheap and easy way to liven things up. Tony usually had one or two mugs frothing away on the bar, and he and I dropped a sliver here and there into random drinks to keep people’s attention.
• There is genuinely something fascinating about a swizzle stick being employed properly. People really dig it.
• People are afraid that Tiki drinks are too sweet. It took me a while to understand that what I thought of as “sweet” drinks on my menu weren’t all that sweet to them.
• Cultivate a good relationship with your fishmonger. I was able to get mine to give me 15+ pounds of crushed ice from his machine and it was plenty usable for the party a couple of hours later.
• No one wants to order a bowl drink. Everyone wants to drink out of them.

Of course, some drinks worked, some didn’t. My earlier idea that Dr. Funk might be a good Absinthe Entry Drug? Yeah, no. The kindest comment I got from this group of Absinthe virgins was, “It tastes like Good n’ Plenty”. The surprise hit was a new drink I learned about just that week on Mixology Monday, Gilligan’s Ginger Swizzle by Ed at Wordsmithing Pantagruel.
And of course the number one cocktail (almost everyone had one) was the Mai Tai (half Appleton’s V/X, half Smith & Cross). It is a never-ending surprise and delight to me to see the look on a friend’s face the first time they take a sip of a really well-made Super-Weapon of Tiki. If you are any kind of cocktail geek, you have no excuse not to know how to make a good Mai Tai. Even with Tiki Month six months away in either direction, when I am in full Pegu, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Aviaton, Gin Rickey-mode, I always have the means to make Mai Tais. Not only is it among the easiest Tiki Drinks to make (the orgeat is the only remotely weird ingredient), not only is it likely the best Tiki Drink, but it is simply hard to make the case that Trader Vic’s Mai Tai isn’t one of the best straight cocktails ever invented.

The food looked like it was going to be hard, but turned out easy.

Easy for you to say, Mister!
I didn’t see you in the kitchen making any of it….

True. But at no point in the process did you threaten to take a hostage, so in comparison to the usual situation, I’d rate this party as pretty easy.

Hmmm.
You may have a point.

Anyway, the key to remember in Tiki food, as with everything else Tiki, is that the key is in selling the presentation rather than in any kind of authenticity. Our most successful dish was a South Georgia and Carolina Low-Country specialty, Shrimp Sea Island. (Note: That’s not our recipe. No one gets our recipe.) There is nothing remotely Tiki about this dish, but skewer the shrimp on bamboo skewers with chunks of mango and serve on a bed of the lemons and Bob’s Your Uncle.
Sous vide chicken chunks, skewered with pineapple bits and finished under the broiler made for a second delicious main dish. Between the two of them, all the bamboo spears made the table look like the aftermath of Magellan’s last stand. Beyond that, we surrounded some pre-made spring rolls with fresh fruit and crudité, and were left with a tropical-looking spread that helped the guests extend their evening quite nicely.

Here’s the bottom line: Tiki parties aren’t hard. Certainly no harder than any other kind of party. Nor need they be much more expensive, especially if you plan on having them ore than once. But they do take planning, and especially imagination. Use plenty of both, and your Tiki party can be one you really hit out of the park.

Some accessories are harder to come by than others….

The essential nature of Tiki is that it is so much more than just the drinks. Tiki is an experience. It can take you away from who and where you are, and give you permission to be someone else. With it’s pagan overtones and pre-civilized vibe, Tiki is inevitably naughty. Going to Tiki world carries with it an implicit permission to misbehave. Whether you do or not is actually irrelevant, the feeling that you could can be liberating. I understand this psychological effect pretty well. My murder mystery party business, though not Tiki-related, provides that same, “permission to be bad” for guests. Stepping into another identity will set you free.

In this and prior Tiki Months, I’ve written about small and easy ways to slip into the Tiki world. The shirts. The Music. The Mugs. But right now, let’s talk about the big Magilla: How to outfit your own Tiki (Basement) Bar. Nothing will more fully immerse you in the Tiki world than actually being able to physically enter it. So mix yourself a Mai Tai and let’s discuss the many ways you can construct your own magical wardrobe.

To start with, a Tiki Bar need not be a permanent beast. After all, while the Tiki Gods may shake the Earth at the thought, not everyone is prepared to establish a permanent rum-soaked shrine to Polynesian idols, rattan, and kitsch in their homes.

“We are unamused.”

Sorry, guys. But many people just want to have a Tiki Bar for that special event. Others want to have an outdoor focal point for a Summer of Tiki. (Or a refuge in February from a Winter of Snow)
If all you want is a Tiki bar for a quick party, it can be cheap and easy. (If you aren’t interested in the low-end portion of this discussion, skip to here) Take a normal table, set it up in the Living Room, and decorate it with a kit like this one from Century Novelty:

Yes, it is cheap and tacky. So what? This is entry level, one-off, throw it away when you are done stuff here. Serve enough high-quality Tiki drinks, and it’ll be remembered the next day as the second coming of Trader Vic’s. (Come to think, serve enough crappy Tiki drinks and the same applies.) For temporary Tiki set-ups, you can get surprisingly good vibes with the simplest stuff. Remember, the atmosphere you are trying to create is ultimately in your guests heads.

If you are doing a backyard party, the somewhat more expensive retrofit for your patio umbrella shown above will help your guests feel like there is a view of Diamond Head from your patio.

Here’s some inexpensive items that you can try for easy, disposable Tiki decor:

• Bamboo print tablecloths
• Thatch table skirts
• Tiki Bar signs
• Cheesy light strands
• Also, consider temporary wall decor, inflatable palm trees, etc.

You can improve on this in many ways, of course. Wrap the edges of your tables with raffia table skirting. It is the interior decorating equivalent of the paper parasol in a drink. Buy a box of plastic leis and hang them on your guests as they arrive, making your guests part of the decor. The crinkly plastic ones are dirt cheap, but spring a few extra bucks for the ones that have actual plastic flowers and you’ll look like a hero. Enough supplies like this, and you can craft your room or patio into something pretty fun. Load up your iPod with a selection of Exotica music and scatter some Tiki torches (not too close to the decor!), and your guests will have what they need to craft their internal atmospherics.
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Cheeky Tiki. A series this month of the places I’ve bought from, or want to buy from. @CheekyTiki is a supply site for my Brit readers to get their Tiki on, across the pond. Twitter: @CheekyTiki

Royal Tiki. A series this month of the places I’ve bought from, or want to buy from. Twitter: @RoyalTiki

Blender drink aficionados should book a flight to Europe, bring extra luggage space. The “Silent Blender” is here, er, there.