Tiki Bar History

Tiki Bars are a California creation. Yes, I know, the first one was in Los Angeles but San Francisco and Oakland became the epicenter of the tiki movement.  It all started with Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt. He was born in 1907 in Texas. This trust fund baby was the son of an oil tycoon. When Ernest graduated from high school his father gave him the choice of going to college or taking a trip around the world. He chose the world. His favorite places seem to be have been those with an abundance of rum.

As Ernest traveled, he tasted such exotic drinks as the Singapore Sling and rum served in a coconut. Fancying himself an amateur bartender, the collected drink recipes as he traveled.

While visiting the Caribbean, where rum was cheap and plentiful, Ernest honed his bartending skills. He returned to America landing in Hollywood. It was during Prohibition and he needed a job. So this world traveling Texan became a bootlegger and he even ran a speakeasy.

In the 1920s, most Americans considered rum a drink for sailors and the poor. Rum drinkers were referred as “rummies”. During Prohibition it was difficult to get “cultured people” to drink rum.

Following repeal of Prohibition, Ernest went legit and put his Caribbean mixology skills to work. In 1934, he changed his name to Don the Beachcomber and began pouring his own version of the Jamaican classic, Planter’s Punch. One of Don’s customers was Cornelius Vanderbilt who loved Don’s punch and told all of his fashionable friendsabout it. Don’s place became Hollywood’s hottest night club.

To add to the exotic feel of his bar, Don decorated the place in South Pacific-style and Tiki was born. (Ironic note: Don was pouring Caribbean drinks surrounded by South Pacific décor.) Besides popularizing Planter’s Punch, Don also gave us many of the classic tiki cocktails including the Zombie.

That same year up in Oakland, Victor Bergeron opened a small bar-b-que restaurant, the Hinky Dinks” across the street from his parents’ grocery store. Victor was bitten by the Tiki bug after a visit to Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood and in 1937, he went tiki. Victor changed his restaurant’s name to Trader Vic’s (complete with full tiki décor). In 1938, Vic took a trip to Havana and visited La Floridita – birthplace of the Daiquiri. Returning home he began experimenting with the basic Daiquiri recipe.

In 1944, some friends visited his restaurant and requested a special Tahitian drink. Vic went to work. A little of this, a little of that, a little curacao and a little orgeat. When his friends tasted the concoction it was proclaimed “Mai Tai roa ae” which is Tahatian for “out of this world, the best”. Mai Tai was born. (Second ironic note: the Mai Tai, unofficial state cocktail of Hawaii, was created near the corner of San Pablo Avenue and 65th Street in Oakland.)

Mai Tai Recipe ·         2 oz dark rum ·         1 oz light rum ·         ½ oz Orange Curaçao ·          ½ oz Orgeat syrup ·         ¼ oz Lime juice Pineapple wedge and Maraschino cherries for garnish

After World War II, thousands of soldiers, sailors and marines returned from the South Pacific with a

taste for Polynesian culture (and rum). The golden era of the Tiki Bar began. From the late 1940s through the early 1960s, America was Tiki crazy. Tiki-themed restaurants, Tiki Bars, even backyard Tiki parties were all the rage. In the mid-1960s, Tiki restaurants and bars began to fall out of style as the Vietnam War dampened America’s fascination with the South Pacific. By then Don the Beachcomber had retired to a house boat in Hawaii.

The 1980s saw many of America’s Tiki palaces close. Today the site of the original Don the Beachcomber restaurant is a parking lot. In the 1990s, Tiki made a comeback and drinks with tiny umbrellas are back in fashion.