Hot Lava (a.k.a "How Bowers") plays baritone ukulele and sings with America's best tiki music band, The Crazed Mugs. He lives in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida with his wife and son. Contact
You are currently browsing the Tiki Talk weblog archives for July, 2008.
Annette Nahinu, owner of La Mariana, the last traditional tiki bar left on Oahu, passed away July 19 of natural causes. She was 96.
Nahinu owned the bar for 53 years and lived in the apartment above it. She had tried to sell the bar in 2006, due to her failing heath, but no deal was ever closed on the $3 million dollar property.
The bar remains open, but its ultimate fate is unknown.
Now that I’ve gotten hooked on making my own syrups for classic tiki drinks — cinnamon, passion fruit, and simple — since there’s no stores in my area that sell them commercially, I’ve run across a problem: what to do with the delicious liquids once they’re made. Typically, I end up scouring the kitchen in a panic for something to store them in after the batch is finished. It usually it ends up being a water bottle. That works, but it’s not ascetically pleasing, and the bottles often get crushed into odd shapes.
Internet retailer Tiki Bar Stuff sells the perfect solution: Pour and Store Jugs. Available in quart and half-gallon sizes, the spout neck and spout unscrew from the top and can be replaced with the included screw-top lid for long term storage or for traveling.
I’m even thinking this is a good solution for taking rums with me when I mix at parties: right now I fill up a cooler with heavy, randomly-sized glass bottles that clank and shake the whole way in the back of the car. At the party, bottle caps and screw lids get scattered in all directions. With a uniformly-sized set of these jugs to hold all the liquids, I could build a carrier and make my life a lot easier. Hmmm…
$4.49, quart-sized. $4.99, half-gallon sized.
New for the summer, Royal Tiki is selling this wonderful set of seven hand-carved tikis. Made in Hawaii by master craftsman from Hibiscus wood, the statutes are 12 inches tall. What a cool way to instantly start a tiki collection!
$199 for the set of seven (normally $45 each, a savings of $100).
Buy 7 tiki totem collection at Royal Tiki
Since there’s always room for two things, Jello and Mai-Tais, why not whip up some Mai-Tai flavored jello served in one of these: a tiki-shaped Jello mold.
Internet retailer LeopardLadyLounge.com has a very limited number of these in stock, which measure 8 inches long by 6 inches wide and 3 inches deep.
$11.99
Buy tiki head jello mold at LeopardLadyLounge.com | Thanks, M Tiger!
Despite the much ballyhoo’d rebirth of Huntington Beach’s iconic Sam’s Seafood restaurant last year (complete with new tiki mugs and a revitalized classic drink menu) the place lasted less than a year.
Reborn from the ashes is Kona, a new restaurant with a new chef, Roy Hendrickson, who keeps the Hawaiian theme but tweaks things slightly. The restaurant is making a play for tikiphiles with weekly events designed to draw the passionate, aloha-shirt wearing, and presumably alcohol-swigging crowd.
16278 S. Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, CA 92649 | (562) 592-1321
Master tiki makers Bosko and Basement Kahuna will be leading carving classes on the sands of Folly Beach, South Carolina at Follynesia, September 8-14, 2008.
Additional activities include a show-and-tell and tasting with exotic cocktail expert Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, musical entertainment by pablus of The Crazed Mugs, surf music, a home bar tour, and more.
Tickets to the events can be purchased individually or are included with room rental at the beach house where the activities are taking place.
Learn more and make reservations at the Follynesia website
The game Guitar Hero has become a cultural phenomenon with the teen set, but what’s us older, ukulele-playing folk to do? Riff on some ironic parody, of course!
TorsoPants comes to the rescue with this fantastic “Ukulele Hero” t-shirt design, which can be customized by the purchaser. A variety of t-shirt styles and colors are available in men’s, women’s, and child sizes.
$19 and up, depending on the t-shirt style.
Buy it at TorsoPants | Thanks, John!
