Jeff "Beachbum" Berry (born c. 1958 [1] ) is an American restaurant owner, author, and historian of tiki culture, particularly the drinks associated with the tiki theme. In addition to researching and reconstructing lost recipes, he has invented and published his own cocktail recipes.
Berry describes himself as a "professional bum". [2] He is a graduate of the UCLA film school, and he worked as a journalist and screenwriter in Hollywood for many years. [1] [2] He did several Disney rewrites and directed a TV movie starring Olympia Dukakis. But he came to realize that he "liked making drinks more than making movies" and decided to focus on his real passion: tropical drinks. [3]
Berry fell in love with tiki culture as a child in 1968, when his parents took him to a Chinese restaurant in the San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles area. He loved its faux-Polynesian decor and was fascinated by the elaborate cocktails that were served. He later explained, "It was this weird, mysterious adult thing that was a part of the whole exotic fantasy world.... drinks would come with all kinds of elaborate garnishes. It had a huge impression on me, and that became my favorite place to go." [2]
By the 1970s the tiki craze, which had been launched by Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron in the 1930s, was fading; formerly popular with celebrities and trend-setters, tiki-themed restaurants forty years later were regarded as "tacky". [2] As Berry explained in a 2010 interview, "the fad entered middle-age, and became something your parents did." [4] But as an adult Berry still loved the style, as did his wife Annene Kaye, a former bartender. He particularly wanted to know how to make the elaborate, exotic drinks associated with the theme. Owners and bartenders of the tiki era held their drink recipes as closely guarded secrets; Beach kept the actual recipes secret even from his bartenders, telling them to use one ounce from Bottle A and a quarter ounce from Bottle B. [5] As a result, low-quality imitations of classic drinks like the Mai Tai and the Zombie had become common. Berry and Kaye set out to rediscover or reverse-engineer the original drinks that were served at now largely defunct icons like Trader Vic's and Don the Beachcomber as well as surviving tiki palaces like Mai Kai, Tiki Ti, Tonga Room and Bali Hai. He bought out-of-print drink recipe books and collected memorabilia like placemats, menus, and coasters. He searched out old-school bartenders and persuaded them to share their secret recipes with him. [1]
At first Berry's research was just a hobby. He and fellow enthusiasts would gather at backyard luaus hosted by Otto Von Stroheim; the parties proved a strong influence in keeping tiki culture alive and helping to inspire the "tiki renaissance" of the early 21st century. [6] [7] Berry began to compile the recipes he found through his research into scrapbooks for friends. [1] He published his first book, Beach Bum Berry's Grog Log, in 1998. The book has been called "pivotal" for popularizing the tiki theme as well as giving bartenders the recipes they needed to attract a new generation of customers. [8] [9] The Tonga Hut, Los Angeles's oldest tiki bar, offered customers a Grog Log Challenge: to drink, within a year, all 78 cocktails whose recipes are printed in the Grog Log. [10] [11]
Two years later Berry wrote the chapter on tropical drinks, called "Mixologists and Concoctions", in Sven Kirsten's influential The Book of Tiki. [4] Tiki-themed bars and restaurants began to come back into style. Soon researching, writing, and giving talks about tropical drinks was his main activity. In 2015 he commented, "All these neo-tiki bars were opening up all over the world... and between 75 and 90 percent of their menus were all recipes I had found." [5]
The recipes in Berry's books are mostly for classic drinks, some of which had never been published before and required years of sleuthing to discover. They also include historical information about the originators of tiki such as Beach and Bergeron, as well as important early contributors to the tiki renaissance such as Von Stroheim and Kirsten. [12] His fourth book, Beachbum Berry's Sippin' Safari (2007), includes what he believes to be Beach's original recipe for the Zombie, which had never been written down except in code. [1] He spent a year and a half researching how to make the perfect Daiquiri. [13] Some of his rediscovered classic drink mixes are marketed by Trader Tiki. [4]
In 2014 he and Kaye opened a tiki-themed restaurant and bar, Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He said operating the restaurant is "the first time I've worked set hours since 1985." [5]
In 2021, Jeff Berry partnered with rum importer Ed Hamilton to release "Beachbum Berry's Zombie Blend" rum. [14] [15]
M. Carrie Allan of The Washington Post described Berry's work in researching and reconstructing lost recipes as that of a "cocktail archeologist." [5] Wayne Curtis, historian and author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, dubbed him "the Indiana Jones of tiki drinks." [1] Berry calls himself a "tropical drink evangelist." [1] Steven Kurutz of The New York Times said, "Mr. Berry’s lasting contribution may be in salvaging tropical drinks from decades of bad bartending." [1] The Australian Bartender noted, "It's hard to overstate this guy’s importance for tiki bars: Jeff Berry literally wrote the books on tiki." [16]
Although Berry's books have primarily chronicled the sometimes "lost" recipes from historical bartenders of the past such as Beach, Bergeron, Tony Ramos, and Harry Yee, Berry has also invented and published some of his own cocktail recipes. Examples that have appeared in other bartender guides, drink apps, or tiki websites include the Ancient Mariner, Bum’s Rush, Castaway, Hai Karate, Restless Native, Sea of Cortez, Hula-Hula, and Von Tiki. [17] [18]
Tiki culture is an American-originated art, music, and entertainment movement inspired by Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures. Inspired by Oceanian art, influential cultures to Tiki culture include Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean Islands, and Hawaii. The name comes from Tiki, the Māori name for the first human, often represented in the form of hei-tiki, a pendant and important taonga. The hei-tiki was often appropriated by Europeans as a commercialised good luck charm, hence the name of Tiki culture. Despite spanning over 10,000 miles and including many different unrelated cultures, religions, and languages, Tiki aesthetic is considered by some to be amalgamated into one "fantasia of trans-Pacific cultures" and "colonial nostalgia". Because of this, and the simplistic view of the Pacific taken by the aesthetic, Tiki culture has often proved controversial.
The Mai Tai is a cocktail made of rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat syrup, and lime juice. It is one of the characteristic cocktails in Tiki culture.
The Zombie is a Tiki cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums. It first appeared in late 1934, invented by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant. It was popularized on the East coast soon afterwards at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Donn Beach was an American adventurer, businessman, and World War II veteran who was the "founding father" of tiki culture. He is known for opening the first prototypical tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, during the 1930s in Hollywood, California, which was expanded to a chain of dozens of restaurants throughout the United States. He later built the International Market Place and additional establishments in what was then the Territory of Hawaii. He married three times.
A cocktail umbrella or paper parasol is a small umbrella made from paper, paperboard, and a toothpick. They are frequently associated with tropical drinks and Tiki bars and used as a garnish decoration. They are also used in desserts or other foods and beverages.
A tiki mug is a large ceramic cocktail drinking vessel that originated in tiki bars and tropical-themed restaurants. The term "tiki mug" is a blanket term for the sculptural drinkware even though they vary in size and most do not contain handles. They typically depict Polynesian, mock-Polynesian, tropical, nautical, or retro themes, and as the term is used generically do not always emulate a tiki. When used to serve drinks they are frequently garnished with fruit or decorative drink umbrellas and swizzle sticks.
A tiki bar is a themed drinking establishment that serves elaborate cocktails, especially rum-based mixed drinks such as the Mai Tai and Zombie cocktails. Tiki bars are aesthetically defined by their tiki culture décor which is based upon a romanticized conception of tropical cultures, most commonly Polynesian. Some bars also incorporate general nautical themes or retro elements from the early atomic age.
A Scorpion Bowl is a communally shared alcoholic tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl traditionally decorated with wahine or hula-girl island scenes and meant to be drunk through long straws. Bowl shapes and decorations can vary considerably. Starting off as a single-serve drink known as the Scorpion cocktail, its immense popularity as a bowl drink in tiki culture is attributed to Trader Vic.
Harry K. Yee was an American bartender from Honolulu, Hawaii, who was credited with having helped to spread tiki culture during the mid-twentieth century, both in Hawaii and in the continental United States. He invented the Blue Hawaii cocktail, and is attributed with being the first bartender to use paper parasols and vanda orchids in tiki drinks.
The Navy Grog was a popular rum-based drink served for many years at the Polynesian-themed Don the Beachcomber restaurants; it is still served in many so-called tiki restaurants and bars. First created by Donn Beach, who almost single-handedly originated the tiki cultural fad of the 1940s and 1950s, it was one of dozens of rum concoctions that he, and later Trader Vic and numerous other imitators, sold in exotic tropical settings. Not quite as potent as the Beachcomber's more famous Zombie, it was, nevertheless, shown on the menu as being limited to two, or sometimes three, to a customer. Reportedly, Phil Spector consumed at least two Trader Vic’s Navy Grogs at the Beverly Hilton restaurant, without eating any food, the night he later killed actress Lana Clarkson.
Pago Pago Lounge was a mid-twentieth century Tiki Bar named for and inspired by the capital city of Pago Pago on South Pacific Ocean island of American Samoa. Opened in 1947, it was the first Tiki themed restaurant and bar in Tucson, Arizona located in the Miracle Mile Historic District.
The diki-diki is a cocktail made with calvados, Swedish Punsch, and grapefruit juice, dating back to the 1920s where it was popular in London's higher-end American bar scene but is now more commonly served as a Tiki drink. The original recipe calls for shaking the ingredients with ice in 2:1:1 proportions, although many later variations have modified the ratio to greater emphasize the calvados as the base ingredient (4:1:1).
The doctor cocktail is a pre-prohibition era cocktail that traces in drink guides to as far back as 1917, when it appeared in Hugo R. Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks. As originally described the cocktail called simply for Swedish Punsch mixed with lime juice.
The suffering bastard is the name for two different mixed drinks, one being more of a standard cocktail associated with World War II and the other being more of an exotic drink associated with Tiki bars. As is the case with many cocktails, there are multiple recipe variations and historical origins have been argued and changed over time. Two of the earliest recipe versions have very different ingredients. One from bartender Joe Scialom (1942) calls for brandy and gin, while another from Tiki pioneer Victor J. Bergeron primarily uses rum along with "secret ingredients" and is known for being garnished with a cucumber.
The Q.B. Cooler is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of several rums, two syrups, fruit juices, and honey, mixed with club soda and dashes of Pernod, bitters, and grenadine. Another version purported to be from 1937 is slightly different and calls for varying rum proportions and ginger syrup in place of the fassionola and Pernod.
The test pilot cocktail is a vintage tiki drink invented by Donn Beach. Beach was known for changing his recipes over time, and multiple versions of the test pilot attributed to both him and others make the cocktail one of his more frequently imitated and varied tiki drinks. Test pilot recipes call for multiple rums and typically include the use of falernum syrup and lime juice. The more popular also include Pernod (pastis/absinthe) and bitters.
The cobra's fang is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of rums along with fassionola and falernum syrups, the juice of orange and limes, and a dash each of bitters and grenadine. The recipe from the book Hawai'i: Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine By Don the Beachcomber calls for it being garnished with fresh mint and a lime wheel, although a length of spiral cut lime peel made to look like a snake is used for aesthetics in some cobra named cocktails.
Mr. Bali Hai is a tiki drink served in a special mug at the Bali Hai restaurant on Shelter Island in San Diego, California. The drink has had different recipes over the years, but a prominent version from the 1970s calls for 1 1/2 oz of dark Jamaican rum, 1 oz light Puerto Rican rum, 3/4 oz coffee flavored brandy, 1 1/2 oz unsweetened pineapple juice, 1 oz lemon juice, and 1/2 oz of sugar syrup. The mug has the same name as the drink, Mr. Bali Hai, and comes in the shape of a headhunter's head with a removable lid.
The Fog Cutter is a vintage tiki cocktail frequently attributed to being invented by Victor Bergeron that calls for a mixture of several liquors, the juice of lemon and oranges, orgeat syrup, and cream sherry. It is high in alcoholic content and has been called the "Long Island Iced Tea of exotic drinks." It has historically been served in special Fog Cutter ceramic mugs.
The Ancient Mariner is a tiki drink created by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry and Annene Kaye. It first appeared in their 1998 drink guide Beachbum Berry's Grog Log and is named after Coleridge's 1798 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner because in Berry's words "by the time we finished with it, that's how old we felt."
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