Hey!

We’ve just created a Flickr group for those of you artistic types who have taken photos in, of and around the Tiki Bar!

Feel free to join up and share your photos - it’s free - http://www.flickr.com/groups/tikiloungeandbar/

Also remember if you have an awesome shot of your best mates’ “Zombie Face”, or any other photo you’d like included in our Gallery, you can shoot them through to photos@tikiloungeandbar.com.

To help the creative juices start to flow, here are some awesome photos that were sent to us by a recent customer Eliza:

I came across some very sad news recently.  The owner of the La Mariana Sailing Club, Annette Nahinu passed away on the 19th of July at age 96.  Annette’s contribution to the preservation of Hawaii’s recent Tiki Bar heritage is immeasurable.

The La Mariana was opened over 50 years ago in Honolulu in Hawaii.  Hawaii had recently become the 50th state of the United States of America, and Tiki fever was gripping the country.  Entrepreneurs (Don the Beachcomber amongst them) began opening enormous Tiki resorts and restaurants throughout the islands.  As the Tiki trend began to cool and the venues started to close down, Annette would be there to collect what was left of the decor and furniture that was being disposed of.  Over the decades the collection of Tiki artifacts that have amassed at La Mariana is impressive.  It’s like a shrine to the great Tiki Bars of the Islands.

La Mariana is on my short list of about 5 Tiki “must-sees” in the world today.  I was lucky enough to be able to visit there at the start of this year, but sadly did not get an opportunity to meet Annette.  The La Mariana is an absolutely wonderful place.  The atmosphere is thick with history and has a great organic “hand-made” vibe.  It is what I imagine our bar will feel like in 50 years time.

I hope La Mariana is taken over by the “right” person.  Annette’s legacy is an American treasure, and it deserves to be looked after.

I’ve attached an album of photos I took at La Mariana so you can see how special the place is - click on the image below to see more.

Cheers,

Kev

Click for photos of La Mariana Sailing Club

Hiya all!

I just had to share this t-shirt design which I found on threadless.com.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce you to our most popular drink…

At the Tiki Bar we serve a famous Don the Beachcomber classic cocktail called a Zombie.  The Zombie is an excellent example of a cocktail made with lots of fresh juice and premium rums with a lot of complex flavours.  The recipe we use is considered by many experts in the field to be close to what Don’s original Zombie Cocktail would have been - with passionfruit, lime, lemon, angostura bitters and lots of big, bold rums.  We top ours off with a flaming passionfruit husk representing the “brains” of the Zombie, to which we add a magical voodoo powder made from Chicken bone and Human blood (no, really!   Trust me, I’m a bartender!).   The voodoo powder - sent to us by a witch-woman living on a small french colonial tropical island in the indian ocean called “Reunion Island” - is dropped into the live flame which throws up a tempest of sparks (often burning the hair off the poor bartender’s knuckles).

We are pleased to say that despite the “voodoo powder” this drink is vegan safe - the chicken was also vegan.

Hi Crew!

I’ve been talking recently to a wonderfully dark Vancouver-based artist named Megan Majewski.  Her work is incredibly dark and at the same time is strangely cute, but gives you a chill in the same way that the works of Tim Burton and Jhonen Vasquez do.

Megan reports that Tiki is alive and well in Vancouver; in addition to her own interpretations of “horror/tiki”, the most excellent video podcast Tiki Bar TV  is also filmed in Vancouver (I <3 Lala!).   Megan’s painting work can be found along with her 3d animation and some other merchendise (including a Tiki T-shirt and Tiki buttons!) at www.deadkittie.com.  Check it out!  With any luck someone will pick up her work and exhibit it in Australia (Outre, Kustom Lane…  I’m looking at you…)

Cheers,

Kev

Tiki has long been associated with the fine art of pinstriping.  You need only walk into a gallery like Kustom Lane in Hawthorn to see the worlds of Tiki and pinstriping walking hand-in-hand.  Poking around the internets recently I came across a most excellent flickr album with a wonderful example of Tiki artwork adorning some form of 4 wheeled transport at a car show.  The detail is just amazing:

Cheers,

Kev

Hiya internets!

Tiki Lounge and Bar now has a Facebook group - yet another iron in the online fire where you can go to share your Tiki Bar experience on the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY!

The Facebook group will be yet another place where you can access information about our exciting upcoming events like our Get Smart-apalooza this month, or the wonderful surf guitar band Instrumental Asylum on the 12th of July.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our Google Calendar if you are so inclined, or befriend the Tiki Bar at our Myspace page

Comic from http://blogs.msdn.com/officeoffline/

Greetings to our undead readers!

This Saturday marks the 2nd 3rd annual Melbourne Zombie Shuffle - an event where local zombies are free to roam from the Carlton Gardens to Crown Casino through the wonderful city of Melbourne. For those Zombies needing refreshment after participating in the Zombie Shuffle, Tiki Lounge and Bar is offering a place to put up your tired and rotting feet. The Zombie Shuffle Reviver will be offering door prizes and “stuff” to people who turn up in costume and will be selling our most popular drink which, coincidently, happens to also be the Zombie.

Ice is back with a brand new invention!

Ok, now that we’ve got that out of our system, lets talk about ice (ice, baby - alright I’m done now).

Tiki Lounge and Bar has recently been experimenting with mankind’s greatest creation (after fire, wind and rain), ICE! We were of course inspired by the tireless research of the man without whom I believe this world would never have rediscovered the joy of a well crafted Tiki Cocktail - Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. Beachbum Berry wrote The Book on Tiki Cocktails (and then for good measure wrote another two, his latest masterwork being the thoroughly entertaining and informative Sippin’ Safari).

In Berry’s books he delves into old cocktail books and the hand-written records of past Tiki mixologists and emerges with wonderfully complex recipes containing secret ingredients and techniques that have been lost in the mists of time. One skill that has been forgotten since the fall of the great Tiki Temples is the manipulation of ice in creating impressive new ways to present drinks. Beachbum Berry’s work has encouraged us to work on recreating some of these effects - one of which is seen in our new Get Smart inspired Cocktail the “Cone of Silence” (pictured). Beachbum Berry has written some kind words about our humble ice sculpting effort over at his “Grog Blog” .

We salute you, Mr Berry! Your work has reinvigorated an entire genre of drinks and is continuing to show us that fun drinks can still be serious (or is it that serious drinks can still be fun?).

Cheers,

Kev

Hi all,

As Tiki Lounge and Bar’s Chief Bartender, I was recently invited to be interviewed by Koop Kooper, the “Lounge Lothario” on his excellent Cocktail Nation podcast.  If you haven’t already checked out this great Australian podcast focussed on all things lounge, then get along to the website at cocktailnation.podomatic.com.  We chatted about the ins and outs of Tiki cocktail making, Beachbum Berry’s wonderful book on Tiki drink history Sippin’ Safari, and our recent Cinema Exotica event.

A few weeks back Co-owner of Tiki Lounge and Bar, David Backler, appeared on Cocktail Nation.  Be sure to check that one out too!

Cheers,

Kev

Hiya!

We recently received an email in our photos@tikiloungeandbar.com mailbox containing 3 wonderful pictures of some paintings by Melbourne-based artist-on-the-rise Paul Hughes. Paul’s works are fantastically optimistic and nostalgic mixes of, as he says, “Sea faring,Surfing,Tiki Trading and Robot Art” - something like Shag meets the Brady Bunch. Below is one of my favourite pieces featuring a recurring robotic character with a nod to Gilligan’s Island and Lost in Space. Paul’s paintings have been shown at the Frankston Arts Centre, and he can be found lurking around Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/artofpaulhughes.

Thanks for sharing your art, Paul. Hope to see you round the bar some time!

Also, to anyone that has any photos of the bar that you’d like to share in our gallery, please email them to photos@tikiloungeandbar.com and we’ll see to it that they make it on to the gallery page.

Cheers,

Kev