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?).
Our menu gnomes have been hard at work putting together our exciting new Cocktail Menu concept.
The new menu will be a beautifully illustrated A3 menu in the style of menu common in the middle of last century. Below is a sneak peek at one of the hand illustrated colour effigies of our wonderful tropical drinks. The drink in question is a Zombie :
Don the Beachcomber’s classic Zombie represents all that is great about Tiki Drinks – heaps of great Rum, fresh fruit juices, bold flavours and a bit of showmanship, our Zombie is good old-fashioned fun. Full of four premium Rums, lime, lemon, passionfruit and pineapple, our Zombie is brought to life with a bit of fire and some Voodoo magic… Don’t singe your eyebrows!
The superb illustration was done by friend-of-the-bar Fiona Palmer a gifted Melbourne illustrator and designer. The colouring was done by her partner Mike who is also an illustrator working in graphic design and is responsible for our great tribal tiki logo. The two of them have been dragged kicking and screaming into producing Tiki themed work for us against their will and have embraced the aesthetic with gusto.
Here is a great example of a vintage illustrated Tiki bar menu that I found on display in a Hawaiiana exhibit in Waikiki Beach. Our menu will be like that but better!
Last night’s Cinema Exotica was an unmitigated success! Many thanks to the Graveyard Tramp (check out his great blog) for delving into the archives and producing some great cinematic entertainment!
I’ve included a photo of our enthralled audience enjoying the b-grade horror feature “Homicidal”, but the barstaff’s vote for best part of the night goes to the incredibly classy and high-brow moving pictures of topless go-go dancers of the 1960s. Very artistic!
If you have photos of the event that you would like to share in our gallery please send them to photos@tikiloungeandbar.com.
We will be holding more of these nights in the near future - Keep your eyes on the event calendar.
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!
On Saturday 24th May, the Tiki Bar will once more be hosting “Cinema Exotica” - an evening of tacky horror and B-grade schlock films of the 20th century.
The feature film will be the 1961 William Castle film “Homicidal” and is going to be presented by friend-of-the-bar Graveyard Tramp one of Melbourne’s well-known experts in all things pulp and pop.
The unique feature of this Psycho-inspired film was a special “Fright Break”, where those who were too frightened to watch the horrific climax were allowed a few minutes to make their way to the Coward’s Corner to sit out the remainder of the film apart from the rest of the audience - no doubt to derision from their fellow film-goers.
The bar will be serving special “horror related” drinks with names like “Blood and Sand” and “Corpse Reviver #2″.
For those technologically inclined, below is a link to the event within Google Calendar (just so you don’t forget).
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!
This Friday we will be starting our weekly Friday afternoon Sausage Sizzle! It’s a very simple concept - drop by for a drink (at happy hour prices!) between 5 - 7pm on a Friday afternoon, and we will reward you with a freshly sizzled sausage! We might even throw in some bread and tomato sauce! Ain’t that generous? Sadly we won’t have any “Purplo’s” available even though they ARE the honey Cocktail Sausage (it’s amazing what you find on Google Image Search these days).
The address again for those of you who might have missed it up there in the page banner is 327 Swan Street, Richmond. Look for our snazzy new Matusalem cafe screens!
Next weekend we will have a great band playing. They call themselves the “Surf Bossa Band” an apt name which more or less describes their style of music. Expect some heavenly lounge music from these folk coupled with our exquisite Cocktails surrounded by the island inspired decor of a by-gone era of decadence.
Much fun will be had by all!
There will be a reasonable cover charge of $8 for the night, and expect the band to kick-off somewhere in the vicinity of 9pm.
Cheers!
Kev
Please note: Bossa Nova Beer will not be served on the night - it’s just a cool picture. How rad would it be if we could get Bossa Nova beer?
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!):
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.
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” .
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