{ "count": 4, "includesBody": true, "items": [ { "api": "/posts/the-golden-era-and-what-came-after/index.json", "collection": "posts", "date": "2025-07-30T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "Postwar boom, seventies collapse, and the long slow revival that brought the drinks back.", "draft": false, "fields": { "author": "Martin Cate", "date": "2025-07-30T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "Postwar boom, seventies collapse, and the long slow revival that brought the drinks back.", "draft": false, "image": "", "lastmod": "2025-07-30T09:00:00-07:00", "publishdate": "2025-07-30T09:00:00-07:00", "tags": [ "history", "golden-era", "revival" ], "title": "The Golden Era and What Came After" }, "html": "\u003cp\u003eTiki\u0026rsquo;s peak wasn\u0026rsquo;t the thirties. It was the two decades after the Second World\nWar, when several million Americans came home from the Pacific and the country\ndeveloped an appetite for a romanticized version of where they\u0026rsquo;d been.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-boom\"\u003eThe boom\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the fifties and sixties there were Polynesian restaurants in every major\nAmerican city, and chains — Kon-Tiki, Trader Vic\u0026rsquo;s, the Mai-Kai — operating at a\nscale that\u0026rsquo;s hard to picture now. Hotels built them. Bowling alleys had them.\nApartment complexes were designed with A-frames and lava rock.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was mainstream in a way that no cocktail movement has been since.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-collapse\"\u003eThe collapse\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the mid-seventies it was over, and the reasons are not mysterious.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCosts went up and quality went down. Fresh juice became bottled mix, real rum\nbecame well rum, and drinks that had been carefully built became sweet and\nuniform. The category ate its own reputation — the phrase \u0026ldquo;tiki drink\u0026rdquo; came to\nmean \u0026ldquo;sugary and cheap,\u0026rdquo; which by then it usually was.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaste moved on. The generation that had found it exotic aged out, and the one\nfollowing it found it embarrassing. Then came a broader reckoning with the\nappropriation baked into the whole aesthetic, which was overdue and correct.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuildings were demolished or remodeled. Enormous quantities of carved work went\ninto dumpsters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-revival\"\u003eThe revival\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat brought it back was research. Beachbum Berry\u0026rsquo;s recipe archaeology in the\nnineties and 2000s made the original drinks knowable again, and it turned out\nthey were genuinely good — dry, complex, technically demanding. That was a\nsurprise to almost everyone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe revival that followed is different from what it revived. It\u0026rsquo;s rum-literate\nin a way the Golden Era mostly wasn\u0026rsquo;t. It\u0026rsquo;s more careful about the imagery. It\ntreats the drinks as craft cocktails that happen to be tropical rather than as\nnovelties.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"whats-worth-keeping\"\u003eWhat\u0026rsquo;s worth keeping\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe escapism, the theatricality, and the hospitality. The idea that a bar can be\na destination rather than a room with alcohol in it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat isn\u0026rsquo;t worth keeping is the pseudo-anthropology and the sugar. Neither was\never the point.\u003c/p\u003e\n", "id": "posts/the-golden-era-and-what-came-after", "lastmod": "2025-07-30T09:00:00-07:00", "markdown": "\nTiki's peak wasn't the thirties. It was the two decades after the Second World\nWar, when several million Americans came home from the Pacific and the country\ndeveloped an appetite for a romanticized version of where they'd been.\n\n## The boom\n\nBy the fifties and sixties there were Polynesian restaurants in every major\nAmerican city, and chains — Kon-Tiki, Trader Vic's, the Mai-Kai — operating at a\nscale that's hard to picture now. Hotels built them. Bowling alleys had them.\nApartment complexes were designed with A-frames and lava rock.\n\nIt was mainstream in a way that no cocktail movement has been since.\n\n## The collapse\n\nBy the mid-seventies it was over, and the reasons are not mysterious.\n\nCosts went up and quality went down. Fresh juice became bottled mix, real rum\nbecame well rum, and drinks that had been carefully built became sweet and\nuniform. The category ate its own reputation — the phrase \"tiki drink\" came to\nmean \"sugary and cheap,\" which by then it usually was.\n\nTaste moved on. The generation that had found it exotic aged out, and the one\nfollowing it found it embarrassing. Then came a broader reckoning with the\nappropriation baked into the whole aesthetic, which was overdue and correct.\n\nBuildings were demolished or remodeled. Enormous quantities of carved work went\ninto dumpsters.\n\n## The revival\n\nWhat brought it back was research. Beachbum Berry's recipe archaeology in the\nnineties and 2000s made the original drinks knowable again, and it turned out\nthey were genuinely good — dry, complex, technically demanding. That was a\nsurprise to almost everyone.\n\nThe revival that followed is different from what it revived. It's rum-literate\nin a way the Golden Era mostly wasn't. It's more careful about the imagery. It\ntreats the drinks as craft cocktails that happen to be tropical rather than as\nnovelties.\n\n## What's worth keeping\n\nThe escapism, the theatricality, and the hospitality. The idea that a bar can be\na destination rather than a room with alcohol in it.\n\nWhat isn't worth keeping is the pseudo-anthropology and the sugar. Neither was\never the point.\n", "readingTime": 2, "slug": "the-golden-era-and-what-came-after", "summary": "Tiki’s peak wasn’t the thirties. It was the two decades after the Second World War, when several million Americans came home from the Pacific and the country developed an appetite for a romanticized version of where they’d been.\nThe boom By the fifties and sixties there were Polynesian restaurants in every major American city, and chains — Kon-Tiki, Trader Vic’s, the Mai-Kai — operating at a scale that’s hard to picture now. Hotels built them. Bowling alleys had them. Apartment complexes were designed with A-frames and lava rock.", "title": "The Golden Era and What Came After", "url": "/posts/the-golden-era-and-what-came-after/", "weight": 0, "wordCount": 344 }, { "api": "/posts/the-zombie-and-the-lost-recipes/index.json", "collection": "posts", "date": "2025-02-26T09:00:00-08:00", "description": "How a drink limited to two per customer became unrecoverable, and the detective work that brought it back.", "draft": false, "fields": { "author": "Martin Cate", "date": "2025-02-26T09:00:00-08:00", "description": "How a drink limited to two per customer became unrecoverable, and the detective work that brought it back.", "draft": false, "image": "", "lastmod": "2025-02-26T09:00:00-08:00", "publishdate": "2025-02-26T09:00:00-08:00", "tags": [ "cocktails", "history", "zombie" ], "title": "The Zombie and the Lost Recipes" }, "html": "\u003cp\u003eThe Zombie is Donn Beach\u0026rsquo;s most famous creation and, for about sixty years, one\nof the least understood drinks in the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart of that is by design. Donn ran his bars on a system of numbered and\nlettered bottles — Don\u0026rsquo;s Mix, Spices #4, Mix #2 — assembled by bartenders who\noften had no idea what they were pouring. The specs lived in Donn\u0026rsquo;s head and in\ncoded notebooks. When bars closed and staff scattered, the recipes went with\nthem.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat survived was the reputation and the legend of the two-drink limit, plus\ndecades of imitations that got progressively further from the original. By the\n1970s a \u0026ldquo;Zombie\u0026rdquo; at most bars meant every fruit juice behind the well plus as\nmuch rum as would fit.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-reconstruction\"\u003eThe reconstruction\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe recovery is largely the work of Jeff \u0026ldquo;Beachbum\u0026rdquo; Berry, who spent years\ntracking down surviving Beachcomber bartenders, buying their notebooks, and\ndecoding the shorthand. The 1934 Zombie that came out of that work is nothing\nlike the imitations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s three rums — Puerto Rican gold, Jamaican dark, and 151 demerara — with lime,\nfalernum, a grapefruit-and-cinnamon mixture, grenadine, Pernod, and Angostura.\nFlash blended with crushed ice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is dry, spiced, and layered. It is emphatically not a fruit punch. It\nis also genuinely strong, which is where the two-drink limit came from.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"why-the-coding-mattered\"\u003eWhy the coding mattered\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s tempting to read the secrecy as pure showmanship, and some of it was. But\nDonn was operating in an era with no meaningful recipe protection, in a business\nwhere a competitor could walk in, order a drink, and open a copy of your bar\nacross the street six months later. Trader Vic more or less did exactly that.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe obfuscation was a trade secret strategy. It worked, and it nearly cost us\nthe drinks entirely.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-lesson-for-anyone-writing-specs-down\"\u003eThe lesson for anyone writing specs down\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDocument what you make. Write the actual ingredients, in actual measurements,\nsomewhere that isn\u0026rsquo;t only your own memory. The history of this category is\nfull of extraordinary drinks that vanished because someone assumed they\u0026rsquo;d\nalways be around to make them.\u003c/p\u003e\n", "id": "posts/the-zombie-and-the-lost-recipes", "lastmod": "2025-02-26T09:00:00-08:00", "markdown": "\nThe Zombie is Donn Beach's most famous creation and, for about sixty years, one\nof the least understood drinks in the world.\n\nPart of that is by design. Donn ran his bars on a system of numbered and\nlettered bottles — Don's Mix, Spices #4, Mix #2 — assembled by bartenders who\noften had no idea what they were pouring. The specs lived in Donn's head and in\ncoded notebooks. When bars closed and staff scattered, the recipes went with\nthem.\n\nWhat survived was the reputation and the legend of the two-drink limit, plus\ndecades of imitations that got progressively further from the original. By the\n1970s a \"Zombie\" at most bars meant every fruit juice behind the well plus as\nmuch rum as would fit.\n\n## The reconstruction\n\nThe recovery is largely the work of Jeff \"Beachbum\" Berry, who spent years\ntracking down surviving Beachcomber bartenders, buying their notebooks, and\ndecoding the shorthand. The 1934 Zombie that came out of that work is nothing\nlike the imitations.\n\nIt's three rums — Puerto Rican gold, Jamaican dark, and 151 demerara — with lime,\nfalernum, a grapefruit-and-cinnamon mixture, grenadine, Pernod, and Angostura.\nFlash blended with crushed ice.\n\nThe result is dry, spiced, and layered. It is emphatically not a fruit punch. It\nis also genuinely strong, which is where the two-drink limit came from.\n\n## Why the coding mattered\n\nIt's tempting to read the secrecy as pure showmanship, and some of it was. But\nDonn was operating in an era with no meaningful recipe protection, in a business\nwhere a competitor could walk in, order a drink, and open a copy of your bar\nacross the street six months later. Trader Vic more or less did exactly that.\n\nThe obfuscation was a trade secret strategy. It worked, and it nearly cost us\nthe drinks entirely.\n\n## The lesson for anyone writing specs down\n\nDocument what you make. Write the actual ingredients, in actual measurements,\nsomewhere that isn't only your own memory. The history of this category is\nfull of extraordinary drinks that vanished because someone assumed they'd\nalways be around to make them.\n", "readingTime": 2, "slug": "the-zombie-and-the-lost-recipes", "summary": "The Zombie is Donn Beach’s most famous creation and, for about sixty years, one of the least understood drinks in the world.\nPart of that is by design. Donn ran his bars on a system of numbered and lettered bottles — Don’s Mix, Spices #4, Mix #2 — assembled by bartenders who often had no idea what they were pouring. The specs lived in Donn’s head and in coded notebooks. When bars closed and staff scattered, the recipes went with them.", "title": "The Zombie and the Lost Recipes", "url": "/posts/the-zombie-and-the-lost-recipes/", "weight": 0, "wordCount": 349 }, { "api": "/posts/the-mai-tai-is-not-a-fruit-punch/index.json", "collection": "posts", "date": "2024-08-22T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "Five ingredients, no pineapple juice, and a decades-long argument about who invented it.", "draft": false, "fields": { "author": "Martin Cate", "date": "2024-08-22T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "Five ingredients, no pineapple juice, and a decades-long argument about who invented it.", "draft": false, "image": "", "lastmod": "2025-06-04T10:15:00-07:00", "publishdate": "2024-08-22T09:00:00-07:00", "tags": [ "cocktails", "mai-tai", "history" ], "title": "The Mai Tai Is Not a Fruit Punch" }, "html": "\u003cp\u003eOrder a Mai Tai in most of the world and you\u0026rsquo;ll get something red, sweet, and\nfull of pineapple and orange juice, usually with a float of dark rum on top for\ndrama. That drink has a right to exist. It is not a Mai Tai.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-actual-drink\"\u003eThe actual drink\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrader Vic\u0026rsquo;s 1944 original is a rum sour with almond and orange:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAged rum — originally a 17-year Jamaican that no longer exists\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFresh lime juice\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrange curaçao\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrgeat\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA small amount of rock candy syrup\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat\u0026rsquo;s it. No fruit juice beyond the lime. Served over crushed ice with a spent\nlime shell and a mint sprig.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat you get is dry, complex, and rum-forward — the almond and orange sitting\nunderneath rather than on top. People who think they don\u0026rsquo;t like Mai Tais have\nusually never had one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-rum-problem\"\u003eThe rum problem\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVic\u0026rsquo;s original called for J. Wray \u0026amp; Nephew 17 Year, which was gone within a few\nyears of the drink\u0026rsquo;s invention. He reformulated with a blend, and every serious\nversion since has been a blend of some kind. This is not a compromise — the\ndrink genuinely wants two rums. A rich, funky Jamaican for the top notes and\nsomething with more body and age underneath.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe modern convention of building it from a blended aged rum plus a Jamaican\npot still component gets you very close to what the drink is supposed to do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-other-claim\"\u003eThe other claim\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDonn Beach maintained he\u0026rsquo;d created a Mai Tai in 1933, more than a decade before\nVic. His version is a different drink entirely — closer to a rum swizzle with\ngrapefruit and falernum — and the two have almost nothing in common beyond the\nname.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth men were relentless self-mythologizers, and neither was above rewriting a\ntimeline. The dispute is unresolvable and mostly beside the point. The drink\nthat conquered the world is Vic\u0026rsquo;s, and it\u0026rsquo;s the one worth defending.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"why-it-matters\"\u003eWhy it matters\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Mai Tai is the argument for the whole category compressed into one glass. It\nis not sweet, it is not simple, and it rewards good ingredients enormously. Get\nsomeone to try a properly made one and you\u0026rsquo;ve usually converted them — not to\nthe Mai Tai, but to the idea that tropical drinks can be serious.\u003c/p\u003e\n", "id": "posts/the-mai-tai-is-not-a-fruit-punch", "lastmod": "2025-06-04T10:15:00-07:00", "markdown": "\nOrder a Mai Tai in most of the world and you'll get something red, sweet, and\nfull of pineapple and orange juice, usually with a float of dark rum on top for\ndrama. That drink has a right to exist. It is not a Mai Tai.\n\n## The actual drink\n\nTrader Vic's 1944 original is a rum sour with almond and orange:\n\n- Aged rum — originally a 17-year Jamaican that no longer exists\n- Fresh lime juice\n- Orange curaçao\n- Orgeat\n- A small amount of rock candy syrup\n\nThat's it. No fruit juice beyond the lime. Served over crushed ice with a spent\nlime shell and a mint sprig.\n\nWhat you get is dry, complex, and rum-forward — the almond and orange sitting\nunderneath rather than on top. People who think they don't like Mai Tais have\nusually never had one.\n\n## The rum problem\n\nVic's original called for J. Wray \u0026 Nephew 17 Year, which was gone within a few\nyears of the drink's invention. He reformulated with a blend, and every serious\nversion since has been a blend of some kind. This is not a compromise — the\ndrink genuinely wants two rums. A rich, funky Jamaican for the top notes and\nsomething with more body and age underneath.\n\nThe modern convention of building it from a blended aged rum plus a Jamaican\npot still component gets you very close to what the drink is supposed to do.\n\n## The other claim\n\nDonn Beach maintained he'd created a Mai Tai in 1933, more than a decade before\nVic. His version is a different drink entirely — closer to a rum swizzle with\ngrapefruit and falernum — and the two have almost nothing in common beyond the\nname.\n\nBoth men were relentless self-mythologizers, and neither was above rewriting a\ntimeline. The dispute is unresolvable and mostly beside the point. The drink\nthat conquered the world is Vic's, and it's the one worth defending.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nThe Mai Tai is the argument for the whole category compressed into one glass. It\nis not sweet, it is not simple, and it rewards good ingredients enormously. Get\nsomeone to try a properly made one and you've usually converted them — not to\nthe Mai Tai, but to the idea that tropical drinks can be serious.\n", "readingTime": 2, "slug": "the-mai-tai-is-not-a-fruit-punch", "summary": "Order a Mai Tai in most of the world and you’ll get something red, sweet, and full of pineapple and orange juice, usually with a float of dark rum on top for drama. That drink has a right to exist. It is not a Mai Tai.\nThe actual drink Trader Vic’s 1944 original is a rum sour with almond and orange:\nAged rum — originally a 17-year Jamaican that no longer exists Fresh lime juice Orange curaçao Orgeat A small amount of rock candy syrup That’s it. No fruit juice beyond the lime. Served over crushed ice with a spent lime shell and a mint sprig.", "title": "The Mai Tai Is Not a Fruit Punch", "url": "/posts/the-mai-tai-is-not-a-fruit-punch/", "weight": 0, "wordCount": 379 }, { "api": "/posts/don-the-beachcomber-and-the-invention-of-an-aesthetic/index.json", "collection": "posts", "date": "2024-04-11T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "A Prohibition-era bootlegger opened a bar in Hollywood in 1934 and accidentally created a genre.", "draft": false, "fields": { "author": "Martin Cate", "date": "2024-04-11T09:00:00-07:00", "description": "A Prohibition-era bootlegger opened a bar in Hollywood in 1934 and accidentally created a genre.", "draft": false, "image": "", "lastmod": "2024-04-11T09:00:00-07:00", "publishdate": "2024-04-11T09:00:00-07:00", "tags": [ "history", "birth-of-tiki", "don-the-beachcomber" ], "title": "Don the Beachcomber and the Invention of an Aesthetic" }, "html": "\u003cp\u003eErnest Raymond Beaumont Gantt opened a small bar in Hollywood in 1934, filled it\nwith flotsam he\u0026rsquo;d collected wandering the Caribbean and the South Pacific, and\nstarted serving rum drinks nobody had tasted before. He eventually changed his\nown name to Donn Beach. The bar was Don the Beachcomber.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat he built wasn\u0026rsquo;t a Polynesian bar. It was a fantasy of one — an American\ninvention assembled out of Caribbean rum, Cantonese food, and Pacific island\ndécor, none of which had ever coexisted anywhere on earth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-drinks-were-the-real-innovation\"\u003eThe drinks were the real innovation\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe décor gets the attention, but Donn\u0026rsquo;s lasting contribution was to the\nglass. He was doing things nobody else was: layering multiple rums in a single\ndrink, balancing them against fresh citrus, and using spices and syrups —\nfalernum, cinnamon, allspice — as structural components rather than garnishes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis specs were also famously, obsessively secret. Ingredients were labeled with\nnumbers and letters. Bartenders assembled drinks from premixed bottles without\nknowing what was in them. Some recipes were effectively lost for decades, and\nrecovering them took genuine detective work — most notably by Jeff \u0026ldquo;Beachbum\u0026rdquo;\nBerry, who tracked down surviving Beachcomber bartenders and their notebooks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"escapism-as-a-business-model\"\u003eEscapism as a business model\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s worth remembering when this happened. 1934 — Prohibition had just ended,\nthe Depression was grinding on, and a war was coming. Donn sold an hour\nsomewhere else for the price of a drink. That\u0026rsquo;s the actual product, and it\u0026rsquo;s why\nthe format survived: the appeal of walking through a door into somewhere warm\nand far away doesn\u0026rsquo;t expire.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-complicated-part\"\u003eThe complicated part\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe aesthetic borrowed heavily and carelessly from Polynesian cultures — sacred\nimagery used as decoration, entire peoples flattened into a mood. That\u0026rsquo;s real,\nand it\u0026rsquo;s worth naming rather than waving past.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe interesting thing about the modern revival is that it\u0026rsquo;s largely dropped the\npseudo-anthropology and kept the parts that were always genuinely ours: the\ncraft of the drinks, the theatricality, and the hospitality of making someone\nfeel like they\u0026rsquo;ve gone somewhere. That\u0026rsquo;s a better inheritance than the carved\nidols.\u003c/p\u003e\n", "id": "posts/don-the-beachcomber-and-the-invention-of-an-aesthetic", "lastmod": "2024-04-11T09:00:00-07:00", "markdown": "\nErnest Raymond Beaumont Gantt opened a small bar in Hollywood in 1934, filled it\nwith flotsam he'd collected wandering the Caribbean and the South Pacific, and\nstarted serving rum drinks nobody had tasted before. He eventually changed his\nown name to Donn Beach. The bar was Don the Beachcomber.\n\nWhat he built wasn't a Polynesian bar. It was a fantasy of one — an American\ninvention assembled out of Caribbean rum, Cantonese food, and Pacific island\ndécor, none of which had ever coexisted anywhere on earth.\n\n## The drinks were the real innovation\n\nThe décor gets the attention, but Donn's lasting contribution was to the\nglass. He was doing things nobody else was: layering multiple rums in a single\ndrink, balancing them against fresh citrus, and using spices and syrups —\nfalernum, cinnamon, allspice — as structural components rather than garnishes.\n\nHis specs were also famously, obsessively secret. Ingredients were labeled with\nnumbers and letters. Bartenders assembled drinks from premixed bottles without\nknowing what was in them. Some recipes were effectively lost for decades, and\nrecovering them took genuine detective work — most notably by Jeff \"Beachbum\"\nBerry, who tracked down surviving Beachcomber bartenders and their notebooks.\n\n## Escapism as a business model\n\nIt's worth remembering when this happened. 1934 — Prohibition had just ended,\nthe Depression was grinding on, and a war was coming. Donn sold an hour\nsomewhere else for the price of a drink. That's the actual product, and it's why\nthe format survived: the appeal of walking through a door into somewhere warm\nand far away doesn't expire.\n\n## The complicated part\n\nThe aesthetic borrowed heavily and carelessly from Polynesian cultures — sacred\nimagery used as decoration, entire peoples flattened into a mood. That's real,\nand it's worth naming rather than waving past.\n\nThe interesting thing about the modern revival is that it's largely dropped the\npseudo-anthropology and kept the parts that were always genuinely ours: the\ncraft of the drinks, the theatricality, and the hospitality of making someone\nfeel like they've gone somewhere. That's a better inheritance than the carved\nidols.\n", "readingTime": 2, "slug": "don-the-beachcomber-and-the-invention-of-an-aesthetic", "summary": "Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt opened a small bar in Hollywood in 1934, filled it with flotsam he’d collected wandering the Caribbean and the South Pacific, and started serving rum drinks nobody had tasted before. He eventually changed his own name to Donn Beach. The bar was Don the Beachcomber.\nWhat he built wasn’t a Polynesian bar. It was a fantasy of one — an American invention assembled out of Caribbean rum, Cantonese food, and Pacific island décor, none of which had ever coexisted anywhere on earth.", "title": "Don the Beachcomber and the Invention of an Aesthetic", "url": "/posts/don-the-beachcomber-and-the-invention-of-an-aesthetic/", "weight": 0, "wordCount": 343 } ], "slug": "history", "taxonomy": "tags", "term": "History" }