Aloha, Y’all!

Another Tiki Month has come and gone here at the Pegu Tiki Blog. No… as of tomorrow, it’ll be back to the Pegu Blog. I’ll be starting things off this March with a serious, cool post about (drumroll) the Pegu! Seriously, it’s pretty cool.

But for now, I just want to say thanks to all who dropped by this month.
To the regular cocktail crowd who put up with my temporary tropical insanity: thanks, and it is back to the usual.
To the Tiki lovers: hang around, the rest of the cocktailosphere is pretty cool too.
And to all the other bloggers who came along for the ride this Tiki Month… you guys are awesome! I hope I linked you all properly. If I didn’t, sorry. I wasn’t prepared with a good plan for all the buy-in this year. I’ll have a plan for next. I have many plans for next!

Each year, Tiki Month gets more fun and more elaborate. This year, instead of one big Tiki blowout, I hosted four casual drop-in Tiki happy hours for local friends. They all went well, but I expect more of you local types to show next year!

I love Tiki Month, but it is time to take down the decorations and store them, drop the Martin Denny and crank up the Psychedelic Furs, finish off the passion fruit syrup and make up some blueberry, and put away the blender. Tiki Detox around here always means a lot of Old-Fashioneds….

Thanks for the ride, guys.

“Oh, I think we’ll be the judge of that!
Source: Meme-O-Rama

Twitter is, no doubt, a terrible time-suck. I can think of any number of great cocktail blogs whose death can be attributed to being cut up into 140 character chunks and fed to the big blue bird. And if you follow and are followed by the wrong sort of tweeter, Twitter can be a hive of scum and villainy so awful it makes Mos Eisley spaceport look like a convent.

But if you have the right followers, Twitter can also be a great place to start conversations and develop new ideas.

One such idea we’ve been kicking around this month, that I believe first arose from the mind of Joe Garcia, an otherwise excellent blogger, tweeter, and commenter who apparently constantly teeters on the edge of washing his clothes with dried coconut flakes, is the cocktail class we’ll call Tiki Compliant.

A Tiki Compliant drink is one that is not, due to its origin, history, name, etc., a Tiki drink, but which sure as hell works as a Tiki drink. If you were to find one of these cocktails on a real Tiki bar menu, the ignorant drinker would not be able to tell the difference, and the average cocktailian would say, “you know, that really makes sense if you think about it.” Even the serious Tiki types, the ones who will argue vehemently until 3 in the morning that the Q.B. Cooler is really the prototype of the Mai Tai, will look at a Tiki Compliant drink and go, “Eh. I’ll allow it.”

To be clear, people who argue that the Q. B. Cooler is the progenitor of Trader Vic’s Mai Tai are known, clinically in the Latin as, “wrong“. They are hapless Donn Beach fanboys deluding themselves about this subject, and who, if outnumbered by drinkers who test positive for “correct”, are always nine seconds away from making this YouTube video:

And yes, I am aware that this Q.B. Cooler thing is espoused by no less a light than Jeff Beachbum Berry himself. But Jeff is forgiven for it because he has to sell tickets to seminars, and Rule 4 says there is no success like controversy.

I want everyone to know that Guy’s opinions are his own, and if you don’t like them, address your flames to his Twitter feed, @TheGuyPegu, that way your mascara won’t run all over me.

And now, if I may have my post back before you completely derail it?

By all means. My work here is done.

So what are some Tiki Compliant drinks, and why?

I’ll start with the one that started this whole process, the Dark ‘n Stormy. Intellectual property issues aside, the Dark ‘n Stormy is no Tiki drink. It has only two ingredients. And while it is from an island, it is one on the wrong side of the world and which is known chiefly as the home of funny shorts and where Bloomberg runs off to hide when there is to much unremoved snow or storm water lying around for his limousine to navigate the streets of New York City. But with its particularly dark rum, and the spicy sweetness of ginger beer creating such a mysterious and unaccountably deep blend of flavors, the DnS just works.

Another obviously compliant non-Tiki drink is the Hemingway Daiquiri. The ingredient list reads a lot more like a Tiki drink this time, with two citruses, rum, and an oddball liqueur in the mix. But it clearly isn’t Tiki again because it’s Caribbean and it’s godfather is one of the least Tiki old SOB’s I can think of who nonetheless slept that much on a boat.

There are lots more, lesser known drinks that are Tiki Compliant to one degree or another, like this new Martinique Cocktail from Chow.

And how about drinks considered Tiki drinks that should really be considered Tiki Compliant? The Carioca Hawaiian that I blogged earlier this Tiki Month is maybe one of these. It is called a Tiki drink because of the recipe, and because it was invented as a Tiki drink to begin with.
But it isn’t really that Tiki in its actual flavor. Do we perhaps call it more Tiki Compliant than straight up Tiki?

It’s a fun game to play. What is your favorite Tiki Compliant cocktail?

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

Rowan at Fogged in Lounge offers an original cocktail for Tiki Month, the Up the Beach. It features overproof white rum, lime, Chartreuse, and creme de banane. I won’t post the recipe here because I want to force you you hit his site. Also, because I haven’t made one myself yet. I don’t have a key ingredient, the creme de banane, and don’t think I’ll have the time to make it from scratch, as he does.

Instead, I will steal his picture, because A) it is gorgeous, and B) it offers me something to talk about as regards Tiki drink appearance.

Larger resolution available at Rowan’s site.

While hardly a Suffering Bastard mug with a forest of mint and orchids garnishing the top, I just think this is a strikingly Tiki-looking drink. I’d like to examine why.

Context of course does a lot. The bamboo backdrop provides immediate effect. This isn’t a cheat. After all, lots of Tiki bars serve various cocktails in pretty mundane glasses, counting on the rattan, and bamboo surrounding to alter the visual impression.
Then the glass itself is lovely. While it is hardly specifically Tiki, and would look just as striking if housing a Ramos Gin Fizz, the shape is right in line with a primitive vessel.
And the garnish is neat. A cherry on a pick is about the antithesis of Tiki garnish in its simplicity, but these picks upend that with their thick, rough but elegantly primitive shape.

No element here alone would accomplish the Tiki look. But together, they show that you can carry off a lovely Tiki look without spending weeks scrounging on eBay and Ooga-Moga….

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

One thing I hope to do this year’s Tiki Month is find some good modern original Tiki drinks to try and to feature here. Lo and behold, I wake up first thing the morning of Day One to a Tweet from @Dagreb of Nihil Utopia, alerting my to the I Should Buy a Boat, an original by Joe at Measure & Stir.

If all you people are so Johnny on the Spot with the Tiki tips, this Tiki Month will go smoothly for all of us!

Above is a picture of Joe’s concoction. You need to click through to his site for more, larger pictures, as well as his exact recipe, and why his proportions are as they are. He unaccountably fails to mention in his discussion that this is a Tiki drink, but with rum, grapefruit and exotic spice syrup, I declare it so. In his post on the original version he did note that its spiritual godfather is Don the Beachcomber, though.

The presentation, though certainly beautiful and elaborate enough to be Tiki, isn’t what I’m looking to do this time of year, so when I took my shot at it, I went with crushed ice and curled the grapefruit slice into a flower with mint stamens. Also, I used equal parts vanilla syrup and cinnamon syrup, rather than Joe’s combined syrup. Frankly, it is still too much sweet, but the ice cuts things a lot. The challenge is to use the minimum of the syrup needed to still deliver the spice flavors. This is the best round I came up with:

Fez found at FezMonger

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

The introduction of Donn Beach’s Zombie
was tough on the Moai of Easter Island….
(Precaptioned photo via io9)

Either that, or they just got hit with the same brutal cold that I’m just now fighting out from under.

Among the things about Tiki I find most fascinating is the genuine scholarship being done in its study. The iconic figure in the field of course is Beachbum Berry. (“Jeff” to his doctor, and “We have no record of this man” to the IRS) As history, archaeology, and anthropology, his body of work is more extensive, better written, and frankly, orders of magnitude more useful than most of the work by college professors. Work that gets them tenure, while making sure that there is no time to teach the students that are paying 50K a year to go to their universities.

But the Bum is hardly alone in this thirst for Tiki lore and lost artifacts. There is a legion of Tikiphiles out there who spend incredible amounts of time digging through the past to find vessels and decor from long passed oases, secrets to the origins of potions, and countless other fascinating details. I’m pretty sure the competition can be pretty fierce at times.

“It’s perfect!
I can put a double Boo-Loo in there and the floating orchid garnish will be clearly visible all the way around the room.”

Today, Indy would wear a fez…

Of course, not every Tiki archaeologist is as badass as Indiana Jones, or Thor Heyerdahl, or Beachbum Berry. Most toil in the relative (to the greater drinks world) anonymity of the Tiki Central message boards. And let’s face it, a lot more of their research is drunk than is written up. But regardless, one of the most fascinating things that these guys do is look into the archaeology of taste. It is a pretty rare field in the mainstream science, and I suspect that the pros might learn a thing or two from folks who do this with Tiki.

A good example, which prompted this post, is a new article by Hurricane Hayward (whose name at least can compete with Indy’s, but probably not Thor’s) at the Atomic Grog Blog. I wrote last year a little experiment on the various versions of the Dr. Funk, one of the few cocktails of genuinely South Pacific origin in the Tiki oeuvre. Hayward’s post is a search for the taste of the legendary Mai Kai’s variant, the Dr. Fong. We both reference some excellent historical research published in the scholarly and peer-reviewed Journal of Faux-Polynesian Studies by Messrs Kirsten and Duncan, PhT.

Hayward does not find an actual recipe for the Fong, alas. So he does, again, what the “real” people in fields like this do, he recreates the recipe, based on lots of other research on the bar in question, its head barman at the relevant time, the other drinks on the menu, etc. It is kinda like putting flesh onto dinosaur bones.

There is some scholarship like this in the larger, broad-spectrum world of classic cocktails, but it is far less common. I am not sure what it is about Tiki that spurs such passions for history and authenticity, especially considering the deliberate inauthenticity of the genre. But we should be glad of it, because going over the research is delicious….

And hey! This post is part of Tiki Month 2013 here at the Pegu Blog! Be sure to look around for LOTS more Tiki stuff all February!

Everyone who in in the bar industry, or who simply orbit it as I do, has some vision in their head of the difference between Bartenders and Mixologists. Yes, I know there has also been argument over the term Mixologist in the past. But let’s face it, we’ve all sort of settled on it as a term for craft bartender, at least in the professional context.

Most of the folks I talk with who think about the distinction, do some from the perspective of the Mixologists. It’s who we are, or who we most often are looking at over a bar. When we do talk about Bartenders, it often is in a lightly condescending fashion, as in this tweet of mine recently. The reason for this is simply that all Mixologists are pros. It is in the definition. (Not all are good, but all are over-trained pros.) Where as most Bartenders are not. Most Bartenders are transients, going with temporary employment on their way to somewhere else.

But not all Bartenders are inexperienced amateurs. A small minority are serious pros in their own, different, right. But since there are so vastly more Bartenders than Mixologists, that small minority is likely much larger than the whole body of Mixologists. And some of those pros blog too. And do it entertainingly, with plenty of valuable things to say. I recently highlighted Tales From a Bar as one of these Old Pro Bartender Blogs.

And that was all an over-long introduction to another of these Old Pro blogs, The Truth About Bartending. A recent post, Mixology vs. Bartending, is one of those funny reads I mentioned that has a lot to say.

The post breaks down a lot of the key differences between established professional Mixologists, and established professional Bartenders, both from a customer’s viewpoint, but also as a career choice for each. Each area he breaks down is a very valid point of comparison, and for his non-professional reader of either stripe, he has a good sense of which terms need definition to understand what he’s talking about.

I’ll add that, like CaveMan of the above mentioned Tales From a Bar, “Freddy” blogs anonymously. If you look around at the Old Pro Bartender Blogs, you’ll see that another difference Freddy doesn’t mention is that Mixologists blog under their own name, while Bartenders blog anonymously. Read Freddy’s About page for an in depth list of the practical reasons for this. Then read around his blog for lots more interesting stuff, including his excellent taste in cocktail pundits.

To be clear, I recognize that you can in some cases, and to one degree or another, meld the two species. Take some talent, subject it to enough pressure for 16 years (as of this week), and you get a diamond like this guy.

Here’s a bar blog that you might be interested in: Tales from a Bar. The author calls himself “Caveman”, and it is likely a good thing that he blogs anonymously, since he pulls few punches about his own workplaces. Tales from a Bar is less that a year old, but Caveman already has made over 60 posts. Further, he posts regularly, so he shows every sign of sticking around. I read him a bit a while back when he was starting out, then lost track. Fortunately, he followed Rule 1 and sent me a blogroll request, which reminded me that he is out there.

Caveman is worth reading because he writes well, leads an “interesting” life, and likes to share it. Most of his posts are tales from a recent night’s work, with lessons to be learned for other bartenders and customers alike. He is a career bartender and a few of his posts discuss issues of how the industry has changed during his career, and how it will change more in the future. He also isn’t above link posts to his favorite humorous video, or keeping interesting and entertaining quotes and trivia in his sidebar. You can get a good idea of his writing style from a recent post Top Ten Most Annoying Cocktail Waitresses, or the entertaining Top Ten Ways To Piss Off Your Bartender. He’s also not above some salty language, so keep that in mind.

One final thing I’ll note about Tales From a Bar is that his posts are pretty consistent in length. They are all long enough to give you something to think about, but short enough so you don’t need to scroll to finish them. This is a lesson I ought to learn one day when I grow up….

Five Years of Doctor Bamboo. Craig writes this post every year to remind me that he has two months boozeblogging seniority on me.

Dietsch is like a dog with a bone… on this whole Rose’s in Gimlets thing. Hey, a cocktail blogger who has something that generates comments has to stick with it!

Well, Mixology Monday LXIV is in the books. I happily hijacked it this time around in search of more content for of my annual Tiki blog-a-palooza, and boy did the internet deliver. There were 35 blog posts, with five more contributions over on the eGullet forums as well. I asked for more than just drinks, and got some molecular mixology, some food, some garnish, vessels, and some good old Tiki memories. But mostly, as it should be, I got drinks. There were classics, riffs on classics, and originals. As for contributors, the usual suspects were in, as well as a raft of new and up and coming bloggers. A few old silverbacks even reared up on their hind legs and let their Tiki roar.

Without further ado, here we go!

I’m going to lead with Rowley’s Whiskey Forge, because his post on Jellied Mai Tais made me call my wife to tell her to pick up Knox gelatin right that moment. I wonder what Don and Vic would have thought of molecular mixology. My suspicion is that they both would have secretly hated it, but would both also have become masters of it, each claiming they invented it.

There was a strong international contingent this time around, as probing the appeal of Tiki transcends all boundaries. We all love our pagan Polynesian citrus-rum-spice-everything-else goodness.

Danish blogger Andrea writes three blogs, a food blog and a cocktail blog in Danish, and Gin Hound in English. It is there that she forgoes her love of gin to craft the herbal school original offering, Weeping Ukulele.

Louis-Florian Tatsuhito is a Franco-japanese musician and sound artist who is documenting his cocktail explorations at Le Trou d’Argent. He offers us a passionfruit treat that certainly fills the faux-Polynesian bill, but also couldn’t be more, um, French/Japanese if he tried: 膣 : Vagina.

Polish cocktail blogger, Tarasco Bar first rolls out the classic Blue Hawaiian, then fiddles with the color (and flavor) balance to produce a tarter and more even-sounding version, the Red Hawaiian. He blogs in Polish, but always provides an English translation that is annoyingly better written than lots of English language blogs of all sorts.

Speaking of “furriners” who write English better than they have any right to, my Tiki idol Tiare, of A Mountain of Crushed Ice, brings us two drinks. The the first is a Beachbum Berry drink, the Tiki Revival. It is presented in the flat-out awesome Tiki mug you see above. She follows it up with the muskily delicious sounding coffee-based original she calls the Tiki Torch.

François Monti, of the french-language blog Bottoms Up, discusses the Molokai Mule, one of the better examples of later, juice-heavy Tiki recipes. (A Google translation, with some charm all its own can be read here.)

My good buddy Tony Harion of Mixing Bar in Brazil begins with a discussion of Brazil’s belated warming to the Tiki phenomenon. He then focuses on the greatest of Tiki drinks, the Mai Tai (sorry, Zombie guys), while engaging in some magnificent Rule 2. He then does what all Tiki-philes eventually do, and riffs on said Mai Tai, offering up the Uai Tai, a Mai Tai with some Cachaça. You can also read his post in the original Portuguese.

Next up, we have three Canadian posts. Here is where I would on principle make some joke about how they are really Americans and not foreign at all, but the Canadians have heard it all already, most Americans don’t realize that it’s a joke, and other international types think we are both weird anyway. So here we go.

Bitter monger Janice Mansfield of House Spirits (the company and the blog) had her own festival similar to Tiki Month in January. She pledged to drink Fernet Branca every day. This worked out so well that she has carried the spirit into Mixology Monday. She takes some of her acquired Fernet wisdom and produces The Misfits, an herbal-school Tiki original that I’m sure Don the Beachcomber would have appreciated.

Mackenzie Wheeler of The Spirit of Imbibing produced the delicious looking and sounding Terror on the High Seas. This one uses one of the more delicious but pain-in-the-ass ingredients for home mixology, Port.

My buddy Dagreb of Nihil Utopia is on the wagon or something. (Is there anything sadder than a booze-blogger taking the Cure?) The upside for us is that after a round of his own Rule 2, he offers up some Tiki tots for the Designated Driver or those who need to extend their stay a bit before driving home. Pictured above is the Jamaique Fleur Café, and he follows that with the Falooklyn, a… I dunno what it is. Read about it.

Back to America The United States (Happy, Canadians?), homeland of Tiki (and cocktails over all, for that matter). Specifically, we head to South Florida, where something must be in the water, or maybe the rum, because both entrants from that region work on the same Tiki icon: The hollowed out pineapple drinking vessel. {Flips a coin}

Joe Garcia of Basic Civilization does the Chief Lapu Lapu as his offering. He intros it with an amusing take on the history behind the name (Spoiler: Magellan dies), and natters on upon his usual hobby horse of buying everything on eBay. (Gimme a break, Joe. I’m Episcopalian. There are fewer of us every day, but somebody’s gotta pay retail.) After that he goes step by step in making both the vessel and the drink.

The Atomic Grog blog’s Hurricane Hayward also namechecks the cranky old Polynesian chief who told Magellan to “get off my lawn” as intro to his hollowed out pineapple. Both use the same tool, but Hurricane uses the top as a lid, then offers us to other classic recipes for pineapple potation: The Pineapple Paradise and the Pineapple Surprise.

Guys, I’ll indulge myself in a little flashback to Tiki Month 2010, when I posted this about Ohio bartender Zak Renzetti-Voit’s turning the whole pineapple drinking vessel thing on its head… literally.

The eGullet crowd came up with a ton of cocktails to try, and a delicious-looking Tiki shrimp dish as well. The thread where they all went up over there is here, or if internet forums scare you, I digested them in a separate post right here on the Pegu Blog. Thanks to Frog Princesse, Zachary, Dan Perrigan, Katie Loeb, Kerry Beal, and another foreign entrant, Australian contributor Haresfur, who used the International Date Line to enter late and still be on time.

Very new blog The Mix Lab makes it into its first Mixology Monday with two of the richest-sounding cocktails of this MxMo. The first is an Improved Rum Fizz that shows egg whites can be Tiki too. The second is a coffee-infused number by the name of Starbuck. (To the lawyers of a certain barista mega-employer, I bear no responsibility for this name, I only report!) The garnish on this one is particularly cool and Tiki.

The next group of posts are all what I feel like calling “Donnish Drinks”. I haven’t made many of them, so I’m not sure, but they have the feel of the Beachcomber’s style of Tiki.

Rowen of San Francisco’s Fogged in Lounge offers the original Rongorongo, a spicy, dark, rummy concoction, as well as a look at his impressive collection of Moai Tiki mugs.

First time MxMo participant Tri2Cook wanders off the eGullet reservation to blog the original Crackin’ Jenny’s Teacup. The drink is also suitable for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Read his post to see why.

Colonel Tiki is one of my original Tiki Muses, the Board of Tiki Idols, and also one of those silverback cocktail bloggers I alluded to at the start of all this. He presents the Rio Tonga, an amazing amalgamation of spices, cachaça, bitters, and just enough fruit. The dim, mysterious photo above is typical, by the by, of all the Colonel’s pix. I think they capture the Tiki vibe perfectly.

Chicago Craft (and occasionally Tiki) bar, The Whistler gives us the fabulously garnished Free Rider. Given that it combines Lemon Hart 151, Benedictine, and Fernet Branca, I think that delicate orchid in the garnish is damn near false advertising!

Portland Oregon’s leading (only?) Libertarian, Jacob Grier of Liquidity Preference trots out a drink to salve the savage heart of his 49ers lovin’ boss, calling it the Bitter End. Another Fernet Branca run at Tiki, the only thing about this drink that bothers me is that Jacob has access to better paper umbrellas than I do.

Wordsmithing Pantagruel’s Ed features Chartreuse in his creation. A riff off the Improved Chartreuse Swizzle, the Gilligan’s Ginger Swizzle is a frosty, frosty glass of high-octane Tiki funk. Ed also includes two other Tiki-fitting creations he’s produced during his recent blog hiatus, the Tornadiki and the Einbahnstraße.

Speaking of elusive silverbacks of the Cocktailosphere, Rumdood himself (who is not a Tiki blogger) appears from the mist to give us an update and improvement on an earlier creation of his, the Absinthe-Minded Professor. With a full ounce of absinthe, some maraschino, some Smitty, and more, this learned instructor seems not to be trifled with. Quick, go read Matt’s post before he slips back into the obscuring jungle.

Paul Willenberg of, um, Portland (he’s the only guy in town without a blog) brings this wowser: The Kahlua Pork Old-fashioned. This one is worth a read, let me say. I do have one question, Paul. Do the pig ears lend flavor to the falernum, or are they there to collagen up the texture?

I’ll finish the Donnish Drinks section with my own post on the Missionary’s Downfall. I’m pretty sure this one belongs in this section because Don created it. With mint, rum, honey, and fruit brandy, this light concoction has a big, mysterious flavor. Since it’s written by me, I’m sure you’ll read every magnificent word….

Zach the Venture Mixologist just got back from Hawaii itself, America’s Polynesian frontier. He brought with him that most elusive of Tiki ingredients, a bottle of Okolehao, the unique spirit of Maui. He uses it to lend some of the dreaded authenticity to his Polynesian pop, the Shaka.

At Shake, Strain, and Sip, Scott Diaz does an Almost Tiki Month in a Post, with four fully fleshed out and beautifully photographed cocktails. It took some doing to decide on a picture to use here, but I settled on the Castaway. Surrounding it is a short history of Tiki, as well as a classic Mai Tai, Don’s Navy Grog, and a Pimm’s Plantation.

Speaking of Navy Grog, my nephew and family cocktail apprentice Duncan also comes in for his first ever cocktail blog post with a run down of his Super (punch)Bowl edition of Vic’s Navy Grog. Read this post. Duncan is one of them genuine Disney Imagineers and is learning his cocktail-fu fast. You’ll want to be able to say you read him back when.

The Hardest Working Man in the Cocktailosphere™, Fred Yarm the Cocktail Virgin leads off the group of what I’ll of course call the “Vic-like drinks”. That said, his drink is Don’s Beach Planter, by the Beachcomber, not the Trader. I may be way off since I haven’t made this one yet, but this Zombie variant just looks more like one of Vic’s sour/sweet citrusy efforts than most stuff Don ran off.

DJ Hawaiianshirt splices the Main Brace over at Spirited Remix. He spends four interesting paragraphs exploring the meaning of this piece of nautical jargon before claiming he’s avoided nautical jargon. The drink employs a hearty amount of red burgundy wine and is the only alcoholic Tiki drink I’ve seen this year that doesn’t use any hard spirit at all.

Jordan of Chemistry of the Cocktail goes with his Ahau’s Dram. This one also has roots as a Beachcomber original, but the changes seem to make for a more Vicish result.

Half of Scofflaw’s Den (Marshall) loves me and posts on a find from Remixed, the Ankle Breaker. I intend to try this one, maybe tonight. The other half of Scofflaw’s Den is dead to me, and I hope the Tiki Gods fill his bed with molten lava.

So, SeanMike’s made the list?
We’re on it….

Marc of A Drinker’s Peace focuses on dangerous garnishes, a hallmark of Tiki. His Flaming Boats Don’t Float is a how-to on giving your insurance agent a heart-attack. This is a helluva fun post, but Marc needs to go back and put in the proportions to actually make the drink in which to present your pyrotechnics!

Bartender-blogger Brian Thomas of Bottle of Swan posts on his neighbor’s dog, Tiki. Wait… what? Oh, he gets around to a drink too. First, he carves a gorgeous Tiki mug out of a young coconut, which he then eats instead of drinking out of, before finally giving us the Monkey Business.

The final Viclike cocktail comes from Mixology Monday Supreme High King, Paul Clarke of the Cocktail Chronicles. He declares he has now become as lazy as Beachbum Berry lies about being, and so went looking for the ultimate Tiki drink for the mixer who has no Tiki setup at hand and no time to assemble it. The result is the simple and elegant Trade Wind Cocktail, which demonstrates that the right name can take certain classic-style concoctions and turn them into a ticket to the Polynesia that never was.

Now, after my comments earlier on Mai Tai supremacy, you Zombie-philes get your turn.

Dennis of Rock & Rye gives us a short history of the grandpappy drink of the entire Tiki movement, then offers Ted Haigh’s version of the iconic Zombie, and ruminates on the why of so many Zombie variations, since even the bartenders who first made them didn’t know what the recipe was!

Ian Lauer of Tempered Spirits rounds out the drink offerings this Mixology Monday with more history on the George Romero of Tiki, Don the Beachcomber. He then gives us three versions of the Zombie, all claimed by Don. Finally, he gives more places to look for other variations, and touches on some good music selections for when you drink them all. (But not in the same seating. Only 2 per customer!)

Pittsburgh columnist Hal Klein, who blogs also at This Man’s Kitchen, heads us home with Tiki Memories of great faux Polynesian haunts of his halcyon days of youth like the Tonga Room and the Tiki Ti. These are the places that bridged the end of the Golden Age with today’s revival.

The last word of all goes to The Old Town Alchemy Company. Jon missed the deadline for a full post, but prompts us all to watch this Public Service Announcement about the effects of Zombie consumption from British comedian Bill Connolly. I shamelessly steal the video to embed here so that you will be sure to watch it and be forewarned!

That’s it folks! Thanks for joining us and see you all soon. If MxMo has gotten you in the Tiki mood, please stick around here for the rest of this and every February, when this old joint goes from classic cocktails to all Tiki, all the time.

And one last thing: Paul Clarke Wants You! … for MxMo host. Paul’s schedule has been hectic lately, and as several posters this month have mentioned, a few months have been Mixology Monday-less of late. If you are an established blogger who’d enjoy a tremendous amount of extra work but lots of luscious content, contact Paul through the Mixology Monday home site and inquire about offering your services. This is my third time hosting MxMo, and it is Not Just a Job, It’s an Adventure!

Aloha, everyone!