Entertaining

Modern Tiki Drinks That Go Way Beyond Rum

The cocktail revolution has done a lot for drinking in America. It’s given us scores of new bars across the country, from speakeasies and concept bars in metropolises like New York and San Francisco serving Negronis in lightbulbs, to whiskey-obesessed neighborhood joints in smaller towns like Oklahoma City and even Omaha, Nebraska, offering rare bottles by the ounce. But one of the most exciting side effects of the cocktail renaissance is the rebirth of one of the greatest cocktail movements of the early 20th century: tiki.

Thanks in large part to the devoted fans of tiki’s founders, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic, tropical drinks from the Fog Cutter to the Zombie were rescued from the neon-hued horrors of the 1980s and ‘90s—we’re looking at you, pre-made Mai Tai mix—and have slowly but surely returned to their garden-to-glass roots. And with this renewed interest in tiki comes a new generation of creative mixologists who are embracing the Polynesian-inspired concoctions while putting their own, subtle twist on tiki. It’s the colorful, paper umbrella antidote to the mustachioed speakeasy movement.

“Around 2010 I started noticing that the craft cocktail movement was no longer turning up its nose at tiki, which was the case in the early aughts,” says Jeff Berry, prolific tiki author and owner of New Orleans’ Latitude 29, which features a menu of recipes spanning tiki’s 80-year history, many of which Berry tracked down and revitalized himself. He, along with tiki luminaries like Martin Cate of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, played an essential role in revitalizing tiki and making it what it is today. “Tiki drinks were considered part of the problem, not as the culinary craft cocktails that they, in fact, were—and are,” he says.

Since Berry and his Aloha shirt-wearing compatriots first began resurrecting these beachy classics, the movement has come a long way, and rather than continue on as a mere tribute to its creators, tiki's proponents are instead broadening the category and its appeal. Berry notes that in tiki’s heyday, the staple drinks “were almost exclusively rum drinks,” but today, bartenders are opening tiki up to a wider variety of spirits, from vodka and gin to whiskey and mezcal. What was already a complex and nuanced category of cocktails—as Berry notes, tiki cocktails can balance up to 14 different ingredients at a time—now has even more flavor possibilities.

“I think that complexity is what’s attracting today’s mixologists to the genre—it’s a way to stretch themselves, to flex their muscles,” Berry says.

Berry himself has experimented with spirits like Japanese whisky in the South Seas Sinner (Japanese whisky, pistachio and orchard cherry liqueurs, toasted coconut rum, Li Hing tincture) and vodka in the Mississippi Mermaid (vodka, tamarind, allspice, lemon, banana)—but he’s just one of many putting his stamp on the tiki trend.

Here, three nouveau tiki recipes from bars around the country, from a well-known sleek Chicago hotspot to a lesser known tropical den in New Jersey.