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!
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.
We now have a flashy new Flickr album for photos of the bar! You can see the gallery in this here site at http://tikiloungeandbar.com/gallery (also from the “Gallery” link in the navigation bar up the top there) or find us on flickr.
One other thing that we’ve done is set up an email address that you can send your own photos to. If you send an email to photos@tikiloungeandbar.com with a photo attached, it will automatically be added to the Tiki Lounge and Bar album in flickr!
Please share photos of your Tiki Bar experience with us!
You may remember me talking about a podcast that I do called SOUSED. Well, earlier this year we shot a video for SOUSED showcasing a number of Melbourne’s prominent cocktail bartenders showing off the face they make when shaking a cocktail - popularly believed to be the face one makes when making love.
Anyway, I thought I’d include part one of the video here coz it features the wonderful Tiki Lounge and Bar! Enjoy!
The 2008 Annual Bartender Magazine Australian Bar Awards are upon us! This will be the first year that Tiki Lounge and Bar has been serious about going for gold in these awards. We’re particularly interested in the Cocktail List of the Year award.
Voting is open to members of the liquor trade. So if you kinda fit that profile, then please help us out by casting a few votes in our direction at www.barshow.com.au and casting a few votes our way.
In related news, the 3rd revision of our cocktail menu is currently in the design phase and is getting closer to being completed. To give you an idea of what you’re voting for, please be sure to check out our Cocktail Menu Page. The final design will be an homage to the vintage “placemat-style” Tiki Cocktail menus of yore with lush illustrations provided by our talented “web-marm” Fiona.
Here’s an example of the style (along with some very cool old-school Tiki ice sculpturing!):
I have returned recently from 3 weeks of holidaying in the USA. I have chronicled my trip in the latest episode of my Cocktail and Bar culture Podcast, SOUSED, here.
Looks like I’m not the only one from our humble bar venturing into the brave new world of Podcasting - one of my bosses, Dave Backler, was interviewed by the “lounge lothario” Koop Kooper from the Cocktail Nation podcast.
The interview is wonderfully evocative of the bar, and I reckon Dave has done us proud with his performance here.
Be sure to check out Episode 10 (Dave’s interview is about 1 quarter of the way through the show.) at the Cocktail Nation Podcast.
Just received an email from the wonderful people at Absinthesalon.com, Australian distributors for some very fine Absinthes from throughout Europe. I have met some of the guys from here, and they are some of the most enthusiastic spirits people I’ve met.
Anyhoo, the email I received pointed to a new blog with a focus on Absinthe - www.absinthe.com.au. I’ve only had a quick poke around, but this place looks like a great source of absinthe reviews of product available in Australia.
The first post on the page at the moment talks about a new Absinthe called “Mansinthe” which just happens to have been commissioned by famed absintheur Marilyn Manson. A few months ago I bought a bottle of Mansinthe after having tried some at the Sydney Bar Show and my verdict is: it’s better than you would expect. As the guys on absinthe.com.au say that you would expect a product of this type to be purely a marketing exercise. Thankfully that is far from the truth. I’ve tried a few absinthes in my time, and this is up there with the better ones.
For those of you think you’d like to partake of the green fairy, I’d suggest starting with the Pernod Absinthe. It’s a really nice place to start. Be sure to steer clear of the Green Fairy absinthe available in Australia, it’s pretty much rocket fuel for the masses and doesn’t really tickle my highly refined palate
For the last couple of years I’ve produced a couple of Podcasts for the world’s first Podcast company “The Podcast Network” run by the unstopable Cameron Reilly.
One of the Podcasts I run is dedicated completely to cocktails, cocktail bars and drink culture, specifically as it relates to the Melbourne bar scene. The show is called “Society for the Orderly Uptake of Spiritously Enhanced Drinks” or SOUSED for short, and can be found at soused.thepodcastnetwork.com.
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.
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