Tiki Drink History: Donn Beach, Trader Vic, and Mariano Licudine / Tiki Month Preparation Part 1
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
- April is Tiki Month on our channel and you need to be prepared. Let's learn a bit of tiki drink history around Donn Beach, Trader Vic and Mariano Licudine. 3 Key players in Tiki Pop Culture.
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It all started with Ernest Beaumont Gantt who opened a bar in 1933 called after prohibition was repealed. He called it Donn The Beachcomber, it was a small bar in the corner of a hotel. He created potent rum drinks, people liked them. Three years later him and his GF raised enough money to open their own place. Earnest Gantt eventually changed his legal name to his restaurant name, Donn Beach.
Donn beach filled his bar with bamboo barstools, fishing nets, umbrellas and anything he found that reminded him of traveling around the Polynesian islands. The thing was… you wouldn’t ever find this stuff in a restaurant IN an polynesian island. Each of these items were simply things that reminded him of being in the islands...but later hollywood stars and other famous personalities would visit to be able to disconnect from reality.
Donn installed a sprinkler system on the roof of the bar tin so that people would think it was raining and would stay for another drink. Yeah, he knew what he was doing. Sure, without knowing it he started a faux polynesian restaurant theme that actually had nothing really to do with Hawaii or any polynesian islands
Tiki Cocktails we remember: Navy Grog, Tahitian Rum Punch, Cobra’s Fang, Three Dots and a Dash, and...the Zombie.
A big competitor Victor Bergeron (best known as Trader Vic) adopted a lot of what he saw happening with Donn Beach in a restaurant he started called Hinky Dinks (later called Trader Vics). I felt he could “do better” than what Donn Beach was doing at the time.
Around 1952 Trader Vic was serving one of his cocktails in a tiki bowl, one of the first of its kind no doubt.
Trader Vic was known as a “trader” because he’d give people drinks or food “on the house” for cool kitsh nautical and island themed stuff. That might be a lobster net, or an easter island statue, whatever worked for the bar.
Trader Vic contributed much to tiki cocktails. For instance, Dr. Funk, El Diablo (supposedly) Scorpion, Fog Cutter and of course the Trader Vic Mai Tai.
Mariano Licudine (1907-1980): Mai Kai, #2 barman for Donn Beach.
Mariano was born in the Philippines, one of 14 children and did odd jobs to get by, until he ended up at Donn Beachcombers restaurant. He worked under him for 16 years, making it to the #2 bartender at the establishment, but always was in the kitchen hiding in the shadows, making drinks and prepping but always under the rules of Donn Beach.
The Thornton brothers invested hundreds of thousands to build Mai Kai in Florida, they needed a good head bartender and chef. They poached both from Donn Beach and allowed them to grow. Here, Mariano was able to set the menu his way. He took prototype recipes he designed (but could never use at Donn’s place) alongside taking all the Donn recipes and re-branding them (Pearl Diver became Deep Sea Diver, etc.) and build his own recipes.
Mariano built a 48 recipe tiki menu for Mai Kai and put their restaurant on the map. He became a celebrity bartender in his time and set the stage for the restaurant that still is in operation today.
You’ll find a few great Mai Kai recipes out there that no doubt were directly created or influenced by Mariano such as the Barrel O’ Rum, Oh So Deadly, Cobra Kiss (Cobra’s Fang via Donn Beach), Tahitian Breeze and many many others.
#tiki #cocktails #history
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Derrick spills the beans about Donn Beach, Trader Vic, and Mariano Licudine = TikiLeaks.
7:42 Coolest drink menu ever!
Excellent!
Great video Derrick... sets the stage for the upcoming month. Looking forward to the live stream tonight and the Tiki drinks this month. Thank you.
Thanks!
Great info!
thanks
Yay tiki!
Fascinating video; great job! Tiki is the only culture where more kitschiness seems to make it better. XD
thanks
Bali Hai IS still open in San Diego. It is fantastic and you should visit the place.
nice
I love me some tiki. I wanted a trader Vick mai tai after work today but I had no orange Curacao, so I had to settle for a couple of pussers painkillers. Love the videos, keep up the great content please!
or...just use orange liqueur of any type :)
Yessss Tiki on my bday month!!!! We're thinking about going to Trader Sams in the Disney hotel...!
yah, my birthday month too :)
Common Man Cocktails what day? Mines the 23rd
I'm older :) 21st :)
Happy birthday guys 🤗
thanks! :)
Cheers :-)
Skal
Speaking of the trader Vick mai tai, after senior Curacao (I can't get that in my area) what orange Curacao do you think is the best for that recipe? I like using high quality ingredients in my cocktails. Thanks
usually, I just use any orange liqueur within arms reach :)
I prefer Clement Creole Shrubb. There's also a great comparison on Inu A Kena: inuakena.com/2017/04/28/new-article-almonds-oranges-the-mai-tais-unsung-heroes/
There weren't mugs with tikis on them until the late 50s, sure. but there were ceramic souvenir mugs with hula girls and bamboo on them in the 40s in 'tiki' bars. Probably most of the 'tiki mugs' today dont have tikis on them - such as rum barrels, cthulu, etc. and if we call them tiki mugs, then there were tiki mugs in the 40s.
My main point being that the recipes like The Zombie, Mai Tai and such were designed in traditional glassware, no tiki mug concepts existed. Tiki Mugs may have existed in a few places in the 40's (that I can't provide evidence of) and they definitely existed by the 50s with Bali Hai and Mai Kai opening up.
But, I guess if someone served something in a bamboo designed ceramic mug in the 40's at a tiki restaurant you could "back date" the term to say that they were served in Tiki Mugs in the 40s even if it was one place with one mug design that didn't exactly have the shape of traditional tiki mugs (but the concept was there). But, they wouldn't have really associated them as "tiki mugs" until 10 years later when they were blowing up and found in all the crazy places.
Common Man Cocktails www.tikiroom.com/img/3224x4f352cae.jpg
here is a page from the 1947 trader vics bartender guide. note the fogcutter mug, the skull mug, and the bowls.
some interesting stuff I learned recently.
Eric the link was broken but that would be 10 years after they designed many of these iconic cocktails
Eric the site also suggests via printed documentation that mid 40s he had specified the mugs on a select group of drinks, I believe those drink designs are older than the mug designs. No doubt a great marketing tool to differentiate from donn
Is Haitian rhum anything like Martinique rhum?
A bit, but that’s in the next vid :)
Sadly Don the Beachcomber is closing this week! After like 60 years.
yeah, I heard that
what is tiki exactly, hawaiian / polynesian drinks?
That's not a fair question, tiki isn't exactly anything; tiki is a state of mind, a motif of decor, a feeling to the type of drink you're drinking. It's a mythological island experience that does not really exist in the "real world" we live in. The concept is that Tiki is an island drink with a polynesian theme to it, however Polynesian people did not sit down and drink rum from coconuts with umbrellas.
Most of the rum recipes designed to be "tiki" are actually Caribbean creations and far removed from the Polynesian area to begin with -- the creators used the Caribbean recipe design concepts (along with their own) to build a Hawaiian Island type experience ... in California (and later around the world). Sure, Hawaii adapted some of its culture to fit the standards of "tiki" to some degree (like tiki masks and all that) but that was just a vision Donn Beach made up in his head.
Is this the place Warren Zevon mentioned? 😅
dunno
What about Steve Crane?
Luau and Kon Tiki where great no doubt, I think we cover those in a few videos during tiki week. Alas, I cannot cover everyone, the video was already edited for time and still was 12 minutes long. That's about 9 more minutes than an average youtuber attention span so... you gotta cut some stuff to make some stuff resonate. :)
How do you feel about the Kahiki supper club that was in Columbus, OH? They were super famous in their area for their food, decor, specialty drink menu, etc. I'm pretty sure they had a specialty Tiki themed drink? However you can now currently buy their egg rolls in the frozen foods area in grocery stores.
Dunno, I just research and spit out the history, I have no personal feelings about any tiki bar.
Can someone tell me what is Tiki?
sure here is a quick google link for you: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki_culture
Here's another: ua-cam.com/video/Tl19t4yquZA/v-deo.html
Mariano’s last name is pronounced Li-coo-dee-knee (sound like liquid)
ah, cool, thanks
It's pronouned Mariano "Liquid-iny" "The Houdini of the Liquids"
*Trader Vics is still kinds out there a little bit*
Huh?
I'm not saying Vics is the best tiki bar, but they have locations all over the world. It's more than just kinda a little bit, buddy.
They have 20 locations around the world (tradervics.com/our-locations/), three in the entire United States. As someone from the east coast (north), that means the closest location is about a 17 hour drive.
Anyone leaving on the east coast trying to find one, or anywhere from the east coast to mid-west will probably have expectations dashed if I were to say "there are many of them." ;-)
They still have a good number of locations, but many have closed in the last couple decades, and they've struggled to capitalize on the current tiki revival in a meaningful way. It's a big corporate entity that is very much a "follower" these days. So they're "there," but nowhere near as important as they used to (or should) be.
@@CorySchoolland yeah, when you look at Lost Lake / Smugglers Cove and other smaller establishments it's clear that tiki is not dead. What is dead, however, is innovation in large chains :) They live off the brand until it dies vs. living to serve a great product.
Except you didn't specify locations. Again, they have locations all over the world. I never said they had 1,000 locations in the U.S.@@cmcocktails
Why does he keep talking about Chinese restaurants? I've never once in my life been in a tiki-themed Chinese food restaurant.
because I'm talking about the history and origination of tiki, which is based on what we today call American Chinese restaurants.