What got you started with Tiki? My start was How To Drink and Greg’s recommendation of Smugglers Cove. Read the book, started buying rum and planning a home bar lol. I had been getting into making cocktails but never thought about exotic cocktails before watching Gregs Mai Tai episode.
I always had a thing for Hawaiian shirts, and my tastes skew a bit kitschy, so tiki kind of seems like a natural progression of that.
In my early 20s, there was a seasonal outdoor “tiki bar” I frequented. It was not the place to go for good tiki drinks, but it was a fun time. They had a grill-your-own-food thing going on, they served a drink called a hurricane that more no real resemblance to any traditional hurricane except that it contained rum (and a lot of it) and they had a 2 per human limit on them. It was a fun time and that probably really planted the seed that I wanted my own tiki bar.
I’m not much of a beach guy, but I enjoy the aesthetic of palm trees and jungles and exotic trimes and such, so having that without all of the sun and the sand is very appealing to me.