Critiki’s image galleries have been spiffed up… you can now click on an image to view it in glorious widescreen, with images up to 60% larger than before!

This has probably been the #1 feature request for Critiki, and boy am I happy to deliver. The galleries are also a bit easier to use, now that all the thumbnails are presented in one scrolling carousel at the bottom of the page.

You can see the new image galleries on individual location pages, on people’s profile pages, and of course in the Images section.

Try it out now:

• One of the more photogenic tiki bars out there, the Kon Tiki Lounge in Tucson, Arizona.
• Critiki user Princess P. travels all over the world, and has shared some great pictures.
• My personal favorite of the themed image galleries, Renderings.

Enjoy!

Tiki Tray, by Velvet Glass

I last mentioned Velvet Glass on Humu Kon Tiki in 2006, when they first started selling their stunning mosaics online. In the intervening four years, their pieces have only gotten better and more inventive; there are some particularly clever pieces that incorporate actual tiki mugs. A trip through the Velvet Glass website is a swell way to spend a Monday afternoon.

In addition to their famous mosaics, they are also creating smaller-scaled pieces like pendants and belt buckles, putting their work within most everyone’s reach. Their pendant version of the Kahiki fireplace logo is sure to be a big hit.

The folks behind Velvet Glass, Mark Bloom and Maggie Rickard, recently spearheaded the Relight the Night event celebrating the return of gas-lit tiki torches at their hometown tiki bar, the Kon Tiki Lounge in Tucson. In addition to being artists of astounding skill, they are also completely awesome people.

Mark and Maggie are vending at this year’s Tiki Oasis; unless you’re a sad stay-at-home tikiphile like me, seek them out and get your own piece of tiki glass!

• Velvet Glass
• Tiki Mosaics by Velvet Glass [Humu Kon Tiki]
• Relight the Night [Kon Tiki Tucson]

Sad Tiki, by Eric Eggie Faust

If you’re like me, you’re feeling blue right now—missing out on THE west coast tiki gathering of the year, Tiki Oasis in San Diego. This year’s a biggie, too… the ten year anniversary, and Otto’s pulling out all the stops. Here in San Francisco it’s starting to feel like some kind of tiki rapture, and I’m the sad sack left behind. It’s a shame to be missing it, but sometimes you just can’t have it all.

So! What will you be doing while everyone else is having the time of their lives next week at Tiki Oasis? Hosting a Tiki N’Oasis for a few scraps of friends? Is your local tiki bar having a Tiki Fauxasis? Are you just going to sit at home with a Mai Tai in your hand and look at your lauhala matted walls, wondering what could have been?

Misery loves company, so if you know of a gathering happening near you, let me know. I’ll do a follow-up post to get the word out. Maybe we can each find our own oasis in the desert of No Tiki Oasis.

If you’re trying to get yourself into the rather sold-out Tiki Oasis and you’re late to the planning game, I have a friend with Tiki Oasis tickets and a room at the main hotel, and she can’t use them. Shoot me an email at hello@humuhumu.com and I’ll get you in touch with her. There still may be hope for you!

• Tiki Oasis

Cover for Swank Vinyl Exotica I

2001… it feels like just yesterday, it feels like a lifetime ago. I had just purchased a new home, and wanted to do something totally immersive and over-the-top with one of the rooms. I wasn’t sure what, exactly… just something unexpected, just one room as a total escape from the world. After settling on Hawaiian for a theme, and digging into my decorating options, I stumbled into this vast and rich history of Tiki bars and Polynesian restaurants. And then came… well, this blog, and this site, and this other site, the bulk of my social life, and practically my whole existence.

The soundscape of my little basement getaway was one of my early design targets, and one of my very first Tiki purchases was Swanky’s Swank Vinyl Exotica I CD. As the title declares, it is a collection of tracks culled from Swanky’s vinyl collection. It’s a little rough around the edges, owing to the non-pristine state of your typical old exotica LP and the limitations of Swanky’s equipment at the time. But it was a great addition to my small-but-growing cache of Tiki must-haves back then.

Swanky no longer sells copies of his Swank Vinyl Exotica I (or its sister, II). But! He’s now making both albums available for download. For free! Right now! Some of the tracks are old standbys you’ve heard before, some of them are oddball recordings not available for purchase.

Mahalo nui loa, Swanky!

• Swank Vinyl Exotica I & II download [MediaFire]
• Swank Vinyl Exotica is Free! [Swank Blather]
• Swank Vinyl Exotica I Track Listing [Swank Pad]
• Swank Vinyl Exotica II Track Listing [Swank Pad]

A felled tiki (temporarily, one hopes) at Trader Vic’s Emeryville

The remodel of Trader Vic’s flagship location in Emeryville has begun, with the in-progress pictures posted to the Trader Vic’s Facebook page. I’ve heard the full spectrum of rumblings on this one, from dire to ecstatic, but the fact that they’re willing to show pictures of the process I think bodes well. (Also: some spectacular pieces were saved from the recently-shuttered vintage Dallas Trader Vic’s that we can probably expect to appear in Emeryville.)

Trader Vic’s Emeryville closed at the end of April for this planned renovation, and the restaurant is scheduled to re-open in late September. Top of my personal wishlist: please make the ceiling in the bar dark again!

• Trader Vic’s Emeryville Remodel photos [Facebook]
• Trader Vic’s Emeryville [Critiki]
• Trader Vic’s Dallas [Critiki]

This tiki carved by Jungle Trader from a design by Doug Horne will be auctioned at the NorCal benefit for Marie King

Marie King, much-beloved bar manager at Don the Beachcomber in Huntington Beach, and a very dear friend to many in the tiki community, was injured badly in an automobile accident recently. She’s likely to make a complete recovery, but it’s not going to be easy–she’s a bit more battered and broken than we like to see our friends, and she’s dealing with incredible pain.

In the hopes of easing the financial pains, her friends are rallying behind her in the form of two benefits, in both Southern and Northern California:

Northern California Benefit for Marie King
Thursday, May 13, 7 p.m.
Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, Alameda
Meshugga Beach Party, the TomorrowMen, raffle, silent auction and a special Marie Cocktail.
More details

Southern California Benefit for Marie King
Sunday, May 30, 2 p.m.
Don the Beachcomber, Huntington Beach
$25 donation gets you a wristband for discounted food & drinks. The Tikiyaki Orchestra, The Eliminators, The Smokin’ Menehunes, The Glasgow Tiki Shakers, OuterWave, The Boardwalkers, Exotiki, The Slacktones, raffle and a silent auction.
More details

Jose at the Enchanted Tiki Room in Anaheim, photo by keithesaan

Aaaaaye! My siestas keep getting shorter and shorter… oh, no, wait–they keep getting longer and longer.

Well, whatever the case, I’m awake at the moment. It’s been a busy year. While the world has been happily spinning along, and the tiki world specifically has been generating some wonderful things, I’ve had my own fun developments. The biggest one is that I’m getting married next Saturday. (!!!)

I haven’t been sitting on my hands, but I will say that Smuggler’s Cove is about the best distraction a girl could ask for. And it’s in my own backyard!

But I’ve missed you all, and while I have been keeping up with developments in the tiki world, I’ve missed passing the news along.

Forbidden Island, by John Lee/Aurora Select for The Wall Street Journal

We’ve done this time & again… an initial rush at the news that a major publication has written up an article about this nutty tiki craze thing… followed by an immediate let-down that the article was sloppily researched, full of inaccuracies, misses the point, and doesn’t really understand that this isn’t just a tacky, ironic thing to us, that there’s real quality and history here.

But over the past year or two (going back perhaps not-so-coincidentally to about the time that Forbidden Island opened) these articles have been improving, both in the quality of their research, and in the authors’ ability to find a bit of true appreciation; they’ve been coming closer & closer to seeing what we see.

Today, finally, comes the zenith of Polynesian Pop journalism. You can tell right from the title, “Tiki Doesn’t Have to Be Tacky,” that this article isn’t going to be the same old quickie, filler, throwaway article that confuses or even damages the public perception of Tiki.

The impetus for the article is the upcoming annual San Francisco Tiki Crawl, but the article touches on much more than that — aside from giving mention to several Bay Area tiki hotspots, it also explores the very essence of Polynesian Pop. It points out the difference between good tiki and bad tiki (yes! yes! oh, thank you, yes!). The author, Eric Felten, even mentions something I’ve long held to be true — that while yesterday’s PolyPop escapism was about eschewing formality, today’s escapism is more about eschewing informality.

So, thank you Eric Felten, thank you Wall Street Journal, and thank you to anyone and everyone who helped him write this beauty. You’ve done us all a great service, and I’d like to buy you a drink.

• Tiki Doesn’t Have to Be Tacky [The Wall Street Journal]
• Forbidden Island, Alameda [Critiki]
• San Francisco: Tiki Central’s Tiki Crawl 8 [Humu Kon Tiki]

Mongoose chase the Cobra’s Fang away!

I adore breakfast drinks. No, I haven’t finally become so-far-gone a rummy that I’m starting my day with the stuff, but every now and then there’s nothing quite as refreshing (and restoring) as a nice brunch cocktail. A little hair of the dog that bit me.

It occurred to me a short while ago that I’d never heard of a rum-based brunch cocktail. I’d definitely not encountered a tropical-skewing breakfast drink — the closest I’d seen are the Port & Starboard Light drinks, which call for scotch and bourbon, respectively. At tiki events, the morning-after cocktail of choice has generally been a Ramos Gin Fizz (a personal favorite, thanks to Martin Cate) or a Bloody Mary (which I’ve always struggled to get excited about). It’s high time us tikiphiles had a morning drink of our own, a little Hair of the Mongoose.

Hair of the Mongoose

Hair of the Mongoose

1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/4 oz passion fruit syrup (thanks, Flannestads!)
1/4 oz Licor 43
1/2 oz Clement Creole Shrubb
1-1/2 oz Clement Premiere Canne rum
1 oz half-and-half
1 egg white

Shake without any ice to get the egg white emulsified, then shake again with ice. Pour into a tiki or bamboo mug, and top with:

1-1/2 oz ginger beer (I use Cock-n-Bull)

Add ice to the mug to fill, if necessary. Grate fresh ginger root over the top.

This is my first real attempt at coming up with a cocktail on my own, and I’m pretty darned pleased with it (and freshly impressed with others who do this on a regular basis). Ginger is a common home remedy to ease tummy-aches, and I think the grassy elements in the Clement Premiere Canne make this something that tastes a little more crisp than your typical tropical. If you can’t find the Clement Premiere Canne (but really do try), stick to a crisp, silver Martinique rum. This drink is a sort of distant cousin to the Ramos Gin Fizz, with a definite tropical leaning. I hope you’ll find that it will put right the sins of the night before, rather than revisit them.

Mongoose chase the Cobra’s Fang away!

A few weeks after concocting this little beast, my friend Erik posted an old rum-based breakfast drink on his blog, appropriately named the Eye Opener Cocktail. (Erik is working his way through the entire Savoy Cocktail Book; dinners at his house are a treat on many levels, and he has spoiled me rotten with his cocktailian ways.) It uses an egg yolk rather than the more common egg white, and it sounds delish. I can’t wait to try one.

• Eye Opener Cocktail [Underhill Lounge]
• Cobra’s Fang [Trader Tiki]

There was a day a few years ago when suddenly the sky got a little bluer, the air smelled a little fresher, the birds trilled a little sweeter. You may have paused for a moment, wondering if you were imagining things… or you may have just gone about your business, smiling a little bit, without realizing that the world had just changed. Not a lot, just a little, but definitely for the better.

The Sweet Hollywaiians at Forbidden Island

That day, halfway around the world from sunny California, The Sweet Hollywaiians had gotten together. Thank goodness for that.

I got to see The Sweet Hollywaiians perform last night at an impromptu show at Forbidden Island. The Sweet Hollywaiians hail from Osaka, Japan, and they play hapa-haole Hawaiian music in a Hollywood style. They are dashing, they are darling, and they are really effing good. I might even call them pipin’ hot. It was transporting music, played pitch-perfectly, and it got the whole room swaying.

The Sweet Hollywaiians are Tomotaka Matsui, Nobumasa Takada, Takashi Nakayama and Kouichi Tsutsumishita. They’re touring California right now, but if you miss them here, you can pick up their music at the Sweet Strings website.

• The Sweet Hollywaiians [MySpace]
• Sweet Strings website