by Mackensy Lunsford . photos by Rimas Zailskas
Jeff Berry, aka Beachbum Berry, freely acknowledges that plenty of drinkers turn up their noses at the focus of his obsession. The tiki drink (“faux-tropical is more appropriate because most of them were invented not in the tropics but in Hollywood,” Berry says) certainly does not carry the clout of a fine wine or scotch. “If you grew up in the ‘80s or ‘90s and you had your first tropical drink at the time,” says Berry, “you probably got some horrible, slushy cruise ship drink made in a blender.”
Indeed, many of the drinks that emerged from the celebrated tiki bars of the post-prohibition era have been bastardized with cheap heartburn-inducing mixes since they fell out of fashion.
The original tiki bars, those patronized by starlets and goodfellas and run by men who became legends in their own rights — Donn Beach for one — were havens for folks reeling from a post-war economy. These establishments, generously spiked with Polynesian kitsch, turned out tropical drinks that featured copious amounts of rum and surprisingly sophisticated ingredients.
The best tiki bartenders were progressive, especially in a time when mixologists were still emerging from a prohibition-induced fog, an uneasy period where most of America’s best bar masters had fled to more fertile grounds. Having surely tired of bathtub gin and reconstituted orange juice cocktails, it can hardly be doubted that rum drinks with ginger syrups and fresh pineapple were a gustatory revelation for most bar-goers.
Berry’s first impressions of the world of the tiki were observed through the idealistic eyes of youth. As a kid, being led into the faux-tropical paradise of a tiki bar for an exotic meal with grownups was exciting enough. The tiki décor, replete with tribal masks and hula girls in grass skirts as backdrop to flaming scorpion bowls was enough to make a life-long impression. Unfortunately enough for Berry, by the time he was old enough to drink, the tiki bars had fallen out of fashion, and the original tiki recipes were all but lost. The most popular tiki bars were known for their signature drinks, and for that very reason, the recipes were carefully guarded by those that created them.
“Very little had been written about these drinks and the recipes were all top secret because these were the big money-makers for these restaurants,” explains Berry. “Because they were water cooler drinks, because they did get people talking, the last thing you wanted to do was to print a recipe and have all your competitors steal them and start making your drinks.”
Berry was intrigued by this secrecy, and set out to solve the mystery of the tiki drink, a move that led to what has become a full-fledged obsession. He was surprised to find that, well after the halcyon days of the tiki bar, many old-timers remained tight-lipped. What written recipes he did manage to unearth were written in code — almost without exception.
Eventually, Berry managed to pry enough details out of both the cocktail cognoscenti and the dusty out-of-print tomes he managed to unearth in his tireless search for the Rosetta Stone of tiki. “Donn,” says Berry, “could have taught the Bush administration a thing or two about secrecy.” Armed with partially-complete instructions and tireless resolve, Berry threw himself into the work of recreating the drinks, mixing and tasting, jotting down notes, sipping into the night until he got it right. “A lot of my recipes are actually the subjective versions of what I think these drinks should be,” he points out. “There’s no other way to do it because the recipes are not telling you everything.”
It was during this thorough digging that Berry began to collect numerous other Tiki- related goods, a hobby of sorts that has bloomed into a massive collection. “Oh man, do I collect stuff,“ says Berry. “Tiki mugs and salt and pepper shakers, tiki carvings and wall art, old restaurant menus, hotel brochures, matchbooks, cocktail napkins, and other paper ephemera, vintage clothing, vintage barware, amateur art…big-eyed paintings and other thrift store art — the lamer the better.”
Over the years, Berry has published several tiki-themed books, and continues to make it his mission to elevate the status of the tiki drink to that of an artisanal cocktail, one drink at a time. “What I encountered first was indifference or outright snobbery,” he says. “But now, all these hotshot star bartenders are getting into it because they see a kindred spirit in people like Donn, someone who was really creative and really ahead of the curve and doing amazing work.”
Despite the craft-drink movement, Berry says, legions of copycats trying to cheaply recreate tiki drinks with nary a recipe have taken their toll on the perception of the complex libations. There is one bar blasphemy in particular that Berry just can’t look past — the acidic abomination that is sour mix. “There’s no excuse,” he says with a trace of disdain, “but ignorance to not squeeze your own citrus.”
Visit www.beachbumberry.com to learn more about tikiphile Jeff Berry.
