Craig Hermann is a systems administrator for TriMet, but after his clock's been punched, he becomes Craig Hermann, Tiki anthropologist. He's a known mixer of classic cocktails—he belongs to the Oregon Bartenders Guild—and he does IT work for Tiki Kon, the annual gathering of locals and far-flung pilgrims who this month, for the ninth consecutive year, convene in Portland to celebrate the culture of Tiki and its rebirth.
This culture, Hermann says, began with a temperance-era rum-runner named Don, who, after Prohibition's repeal, opened his eponymous Hollywood club, Don the Beachcomber, introducing Polynesian decor, food and tropical drinks to the continental U.S. for the first time. A few years later, Trader Vic's promptly followed suit, and the birth of Tiki culture began.
Twenty years later, Hermann says, Tiki went "mainstream" as Americans, inspired by their Caribbean vacations and honeymoons, returned home and began building Tiki-style wet bars in their basements, where they'd entertain friends while listening to swinging, orchestral Afro-Cuban rhythm-driven Exotica LPs.
But, he says, those honeymooners had kids who effectively grew up and killed the subculture. "Tiki is a caricature culture," Hermann says, and it came to be seen as "un-hip" and "embarrassing," and was sometimes accused of "cultural appropriation."
"It was a done deal," he says.
But then the 1990s happened. Swing was revived and reborn. So, too, began the rebirth of the Exotica genre and the return of Tiki had arrived. Twenty years on, it's still a subculture, but it's still around.
And despite Portland's—or perhaps to spite its—forever granite-colored skies, some Portlanders have carved out their own world of Tiki. Hermann says there are probably 100 Portlanders who are dyed-in-the-wool like he, personifying Tiki itself, and estimates that another 500, and "likely more," are casual fans.
But heading for the palms and the beaches can wait till January, because right here, right now, you host your very own Tiki party in your very own home.
How to Tiki at Home
To Tiki, one must first verbify the word Tiki. Once you've done that, take a look around and dream a little.
The Environs
Troy Susan has lived in Portland since just before enrolling to the Pacific Northwest College of Art from which he graduated in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts. In 1999, he founded Bamboo Craftsman in Kenton, which doesn't just import hand-crafted home and garden decorations but will build them for you, too. Susan says Bamboo Craftsman builds decks, installations and wet bars, and will hand-carve Tiki statues, as well.
Of course, to give your Tiki bar that last bit of oomph, you might want to surround it with one or more works for sale at Elroy Artspace. Elroy, which puts the "mod" in modern, is presenting this July Scootiki: Mods & Gods, a gallery show featuring locally and nationally made Tiki-inspired artwork.
The Spirits
Located along Portland's Distillery Row, Deco Distilling is owned and operated by Bill Adams, a software engineer, and Lenny Gotter, a professional photographer. Since 2008, the pair have been dreaming up and bottling rum recipes, including an award winning coffee-flavored variety made with locally roasted fair-trade coffee beans.
"The coffee rum inspiration is from my own experiments making coffee-chocolate liqueurs," Gotter says. "[W]hat really stayed with me was the rich coffee flavor from using real coffee, not flavorings that most commercial products use."
His experiments paid off. The coffee-flavored rum was blindly tasted by a panel of judges at this year's San Francisco World Spirits Competition and placed second, winning a silver medal.
So, in a town known for it's vodka distilleries, why rum?
"Well that question seems to answer itself," Gotter says. "I love rum, and I love whiskey, [and] rum is easier to start with."
The Mixer
In 2003, Blair Reynolds started making syrups for his own use at a bartending gig at a pizza joint in Petaluma, California. But he and his wife got that Pacific Northwest itch, which they scratched by settling in Portland in 2006. But it wasn’t until 2009 that Reynolds realized his newly adopted city might support a niche syrup business. That’s when he began in earnest making (the recently re-dubbed) B.G. Reynolds' Hand-Crafted Exotic Syrups.
At present, Reynolds offers 11 handmade syrups, which he says are made with a "unique combination of sugars, juices and spices, not just a sugar base with 'flavoring.'"
"One of the inspirations for making the syrups was to make tropical drinks easier to make, so that everyone could enjoy them," Reynolds says. And people are enjoying them. You can find drinks made with his syrups at Clyde Common, Teardrop Lounge, Pope House Bourbon Lounge, BlueHour and The Bent Brick.
Sample such a drink next time you're out. If you like it, for a few dollars, Reynolds will send some bottles your way via his "webstore."
The Cocktail
So your bar's been built, and you've purchased all locally made rums and syrups. Now all you need is the right glass from which to sip. And everyone knows that you can't host a proper Tiki party without Tiki mugs. And that's where Muntiki comes in.
Muntiki originally began as Nielsen Ceramics, a father-and-son team from Monterey, California, which, according to Miles Nielsen, "produced items such as dishes and bathroom ware to department stores like Stroud’s and Macy’s" before finding creative opportunities in hand-crafting ceramic mugs for the Tiki set.
In January, 2010, the family moved the business to Portland, setting up a studio on Klickitat Street where they continued to focus solely on Tiki, coming up with as many as 15 designs each year and annually hand-producing about 1,000 mugs.
The only catch is that you can only find Muntiki online, where they've published an extensive catalog of their mugs and other "oddities."
The Rest
Now light a torch, spin a Martin Denny record (CDs will suffice, but no MP3s! They'll spoil the mood), gather together some friends and raise a glass to the rum-runners who made it all possible and the craftsmen they in turn inspired.
The Recipe
Craig Hermann's pahoehoe (pa-HOY-hoy), made with Deco Coffee Rum and B.G. Reynolds' Hand-Crafted Exotic Syrups
1 oz lime juice
0.5 oz pineapple juice
0.5 oz B.G. Reynolds vanilla syrup
0.5 oz B.G. Reynolds passion fruit syrup
1 oz Coruba Dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz Deco Coffee Rum
dash of bitters
dash of absinthe (Herbsaint, recommended)
Shake with 8 oz crushed ice and pour into Hurricane glass.
Garnish with a pineapple wedge and mint sprig.
1.) Unless you're Polynesian, "making Tiki culture yours" is the act of cultural appropriation, plain and simple. The headline on this piece is offensive, as it *advocates* indulging in appropriation.
2.) The charge of cultural appropriation does not deserve scare quotes (as it has been used in the article), as if it's a "just a matter of opinion" idea that someone cooked up one day.
3.) Additionally, the charge of cultural appropriation is not in the same league as a charge of "un-hip" or "embarrassing." Cultural appropriation is not a matter of taste or tastelessness, but of *harm* to the original peoples. Cultural appropriation is co-opting, defacing, and devaluing a people's culture. Additionally, it is doing so when one's culture is one of the few things of value that a colonized people has left.
And if you as a writer do not understand why cultural appropriation can harm a people, you certainly should *not* be writing about "Tiki culture". (Which *is* a topic that deserves scare quotes, not being a culture at all.)
If Neighborhood Notes is going to indulge in writing only boosterish, uncritical articles, it can at least choose its topics so that it avoids uncritically boostering phenomena that harm some of Portland's residents. For yes, Polynesians live here, too. At the very least, Neighborhood Notes, be more neighborly in how you choose your topics.
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Thank you, Sanguinity, for your comments and criticism.
When writing the piece, I myself, was aware of the sublimation of the Tiki Culture, especially in the United States, where it was first formed by the efforts of entrepreneurs, before catching on with a not-too-small segment of the population who had returned home from their post World War II-era tropical vacations and honeymoons to adopt and, yes, appropriate the culture they had enjoyed by building in their basements tropically themed wet bars.
I was hoping in fact that this was made apparent by pointing out in the story that the Tiki Culture, and *not* the Polynesian societies from which it was drawn, came to be seen as "unhip" and "embarrassing."
The quotations used in discussing this were not actually scare quotes, but are intended to be read as real quotes from Mr. Hermann, who, in his defense, seems very aware and culturally sensitive of the fact that Tiki Culture (and again, not the Polynesian societies from which it was drawn) is indeed a "caricature culture."
The story is, in general, a guide for those who've had or who have an interest in the Tiki Culture as it presently exists. Thus, "making (that culture) yours" is meant to reflect the DIY ethos of the Portlanders who have an interest in Tiki Culture, and the locals who, through their work, help them realize it.
It was not my intent that the idea of Making Tiki Culture Yours can be read as an endorsement of the appropriation of the historic, living and breathing Polynesian culture.
That said, your opinion and criticism are very valid and very real, and I appreciate and welcome them.
~Chad
Unless you're Polynesian, "making Tiki culture yours" is the act of cultural appropriation, plain and simple. The
Lighten up, Francis!
So it's campy! (Or kitschy.) Get a Life, already! After all, Everything about in USA culture is "culturally appropriated", even "native" Americana. And such imitation is flattery.
As the author of this post (and please forgive me for reposting some of what I had already parsed earlier today on here), I have to say I am not puzzled by the criticisms levied against Tiki Culture, or the post, in general.
As long as the conversation is respectful and is void of passive-aggression, I am excited to see this dialogue happening.
I think the concerns and criticisms of Tiki Culture, as I have mentioned before, are not only valid and real, but appreciated and welcomed.
I do feel that I must add, from my interpretive experience and in defense of those with whom I spoke for this story, that none of them seemed to harbor mendacity, or even naivety, about pan-Polynesian cultures, of which I, and of which I think they, are comfortable perceiving as polylithic.
That said, where does one draw one's line? Can Anglo-Saxon British islanders open Indian restaurants? Can Americans (as we, sandwiched in the middle of Canada and Mexico like to call ourselves), no matter what their race or status, serve traditional Mexican cuisine at the restaurants they wish to open? (Personally, in digression, I wish someone would, no matter from where they hail, as long as the food is studied, at least somewhat-authentic, tasty and inspiring enough so that I can take what I learn from them to give it a try at home).
I can say with certainty that I think many cultures often appropriate the traditions, many of them rooted in struggle, of "others." "Americans" gave little credit to the second-generation freed slaves who created the blues and jazz music that pretty much defined an awful lot of how our pot (and the stylistic pots of other cultures) would for the next 60 years melt. James Baldwin, Nina Simone and Eric Dolphy all left a culture that they felt refused them, and found cultures that collectively welcomed them (although one can presume that not everyone in those cultures welcomed them kindly, if at all, including those who perhaps genuinely welcomed their talents while distancing themselves from these artists).
Is it okay for Paul Simon (or Peter Gabriel or Tuneyards or The Talking Heads) to appropriate South African rhythms? What about Ornette Coleman's integration of Indian music into his very personal and uniquely original expression of jazz? What about Anton Dvorak, an Eastern European destined to make "Americans" realize that their musical legacy was to embrace and strike forth with the rhythms and melodies based in the chants and plaintive spirituals of Native Americans and Afro-Americans? "Our" national anthem, after all, is based on the melody of a British drinking song. These are individuals who, after all, profited, by various degrees, by taking a little of this or a little of that from whomever inspired them.
I have to say that when it comes to "culture," I have what I will call a privilege, to pick and choose what I choose to pick and choose. It's made up (or used to be made up) of French New Wave films and Japanese family dramas, the music of the Roma, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, 1950s Polynesian-inspired Exotica and the sublime, yet supremely racist, Richard Wagner. I choke equally up (for different reasons) when I watch Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" of Stephanie Black's "Life and Debt." I like jokes about clowns and, sometimes, the Twitter feeds of complete strangers. And the best part is, that privilege, that responsibility, is like water. In relation the earth that surrounds it, its course, while steady, is, with nuance, always changing.
"Tiki Culture" is the invention/property of mid-20th century America. It is pure fantasy created by the mystique of far away places out of reach for most people. It draws from various cultures the same way Disney Land draws from various European cultures. No one seems to get their panties in a wad about Cinderella's castle. Hell, it even contributes to some cultures who drew inspiration from it (see tourism in Hawaii). No one is being made fun of, no one is being harmed.
The way I see it, people go out of their way to find things to be "offended" by things these days as if there's some sort of prize for being the most uptight politically correct professional victim finder you can be (welcome to Portland). If you choose to be that kind of holier than thou weenie, have a nice time with it. I'm just not interested in playing along .