For art fans, the annual Art Basel Miami Beach can be ridiculously overwhelming. Running from Thursday, Dec. 1, through Sunday, Dec. 4, the 10th edition of the “most prestigious art show in the Americas” features more than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Art Basel Miami Beach is a sister event to Art Basel in Switzerland, founded in 1970 and called “the Olympics of the art world.” Miami Beach organizers have boasted that their event has eclipsed the original Art Basel in size and popularity, attracting more than 40,000 attendees a year.
Running concurrently with Art Basel is Design Miami, an international design show that also has a sister event in Switzerland. It’s a marketplace for collectible design, where the world’s top galleries gather to present museum-quality exhibitions of 20th and 21st century furniture, lighting and art. It attracts some of the top figures from the worlds of design, architecture, art and fashion.
Hot coffee cocktails provide the perfect ending to an exotic meal in one of The Mai-Kai’s many enchanting dining rooms. While they aren’t as highly rated as the drinks on the mild, medium and strong menus, these after-dinner grogs play an important role beyond their cool collectible mugs.
Tahitian Coffee is easy on the palate, not too strong or overwhelming. Your taste buds may thank you after the onslaught that most likely preceded it. If you’re craving a mellow finale or just need some caffeine for the road, this drink fits the bill nicely.
There are many elements crucial to the appreciation of authentic Polynesian Pop, aka Tiki culture: The history, the architecture, the decor and art, the cocktails. But like the atmosphere of any great Tiki bar, the assimilation of the perfect musical mix cannot be understated.
You can catch many great bands performing at The Hukilau and other major events, but filling your music library with a wide range of songs from the past 50 years can be daunting. Luckily, there are quite a few podcasts that do an excellent job of providing the perfect soundscape. They also giving listeners a chance to sample songs before buying.
Below is a list of our favorites, updated in August 2012 to add the Exotic Tiki Island podcast and GaragePunk Surfcast.
But first, a quick primer. A good starting point for any Tiki music collection is, of course, Seven A. Kirtsten’s The Sound of Tiki. This 17-track collection offers a great history lesson with tracks by exotica forefathers Arthur Lyman, Les Baxter, and Martin Denny plus a visually stunning 50-page booklet (plus Kevin Kidney-designed cover and artwork).
The Cobra’s Kiss is one of the hidden gems at The Mai-Kai, a complex and layered cocktail on the medium-strength section menu that may take newbies time to fully appreciate. But if you truly savor rum and exotic flavors, you’ll eventually experience a revelation.
A Cobra's Kiss is enjoyed during The Hukilau in June 2010. (Photo by Hurricane Hayward)
For The Atomic Grog, that revelation came during the 2010 Hukilau (see photo). It became the event’s drink du jour, a suddenly under-appreciated classic. If you hang out at The Mai-Kai and sample enough of the cocktails, you’ll have many similar experiences. Fittingly, the cocktail made a grand return to The Hukilau 13 years later at the 2023 opening-night party at the Beachcomber Resort while the restaurant nears the home stretch in its massive restoration project. The Hukilau highlights:Photos and memories from Tiki weekender
While the Cobra’s Kiss flavor profile is distinctive, it’s not unique. Tiki cocktail fans may already be familiar with the Cobra’s Fang, an early Don the Beachcomber classic.
But as he did with many of Donn Beach’s classics, former Beachcomber bartender Mariano Licudine tweaked the Cobra’s Fang just enough to give it his own stamp at The Mai-Kai. In this case, it is indeed milder but also arguably more polished than the original.
It’s one of our favorites on the medium menu, along with the Shark Bite and Rum Julep. All are intensely flavorful and highly recommended.
The creators of a new documentary on the rise, fall and resurgence of Tiki culture have announced that artist Kevin Kidney has been hired as art director.
Tiki enthusiasts from around the world gathered at The Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale during The Hukilau in June 2011. (Photo by Go11Media.com)
Much of Plastic Paradise was filmed last June at The Hukilau and the historic Mai-Kai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, and there are plans to show a sneak preview during next year’s Polynesian Pop extravaganza, scheduled for April 19-22. Plastic Paradise is then slated to hit the festival circuit, followed by airings nationwide on PBS affiliates.
The documentary, an hour-long chronicle of Tiki culture, was commissioned by PBS. The filmmakers, known as Common Machine, had previously provided PBS with an award-winning film about Cuban artists living in Miami, Hecho a Mano: Creativity in Exile.
* Click here to see a preview of Plastic Paradise
Kern Mattei in his office at The Mai-Kai, July 2011. (Photo by Susan Hayward)
This is the second in The Atomic Grog’s series of short interviews with noted personalities involved in events, music, art, cocktails and Tiki/retro culture.
Kern Mattei was destined to be general manager of The Mai-Kai. His father, Kern Sr., held the same position at the legendary Polynesian palace from 1964 to 1991. His mother was a Mai-Kai dancer, and he literally grew up in the restaurant. He was born in 1966, 10 years after it opened, and now works in the same office that his father did.
He worked a variety of jobs at The Mai-Kai while in school, then began as a manager in 1993 after earning a bachelor’s degree in hospitality from Florida International University. Kern lives in Fort Lauderdale with his wife, Elke, and two children: Cheyne and Nicholas. I conducted this interview with the always dapper Kern on July 30.
There’s a fascinating new documentary airing this month on WLRN, the local PBS television station: Prohibition and the South Florida Connection. This one-hour film by award-winning journalist Steve Waxman chronicles a colorful and chaotic period of U.S. history with a special focus on South Florida’s role.
Through interviews, archival photos and video, the program takes an in-depth look at the region’s relationship with rum importers from the Bahamas, along with the culture of profits and crime that defined this infamous era. From Al Capone to local speakeasies to the corrupt police, it reveals a wanton yet endearing chapter of South Florida history.
Strawberry Daiquiri, July 2011. (Photo by Hurricane Hayward)
Even though it falls near the bottom of our rankings of the top Mai-Kai cocktails, there’s nothing really wrong with the Strawberry Daiquiri. Like the Banana Daiquiri, it’s a superb version of an often-maligned “slushy drink.”
I’ll admit, this was the last drink I sampled on my initial journey through the entire Mai-Kai menu. The Strawberry Daiquiri’s reputation as a girly drink definitely preceded it. But as Larry David says when confronted with something seemingly unpleasant: “It’s not that bad.”
True, it’s the antithesis of all the high-octane concoctions the Fort Lauderdale institution is known for, just one step above the non-alcoholic selections. But there’s a place for milder drinks, especially when they’re authentically prepared with fresh fruit this expertly.
Boca Raton’s trendy Mizner Park may never be the same. Restaurant/nightclub impresarios Rodney Mayo and Scott Frielich have joined forces with Pizza Fusion founder Vaughan Lazar for a fresh concept that combines tasty Asian street food with hand-crafted drinks and a social conscience.
Kapow! is inspired by New York City noodle bars featuring communal Asian comfort food with a gastro-style influence.
The menu will feature “fresh and sustainable” pan-Asian noodles and dim sum items plus craft cocktails in a edgy atmosphere. Much of that edge has been provided by South Florida artist Mike “Pooch” Pucciarelli, who painted an incredible mural that spans one entire wall.
Few realize that the Zombie – not the Mai Tai – is the drink that kicked off the tropical drink craze. Created in the 1930s by the Dr. Frankenstein of tropical mixology, Donn Beach (aka Don the Beachcomber), the Zombie remains his masterpiece.
Beach’s mad scientist approach to combining multiple rums, juices, syrups and spices was groundbreaking and set a standard that remains an influential touchstone for today’s bartenders in both the Tiki and craft cocktail worlds. But if it weren’t for cocktail sleuth, historian and author Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, we might not have ever discovered that legacy.
Berry rescued the Zombie (and many other Tiki classics) from bad bartending and half-assed attempts to re-create the originals. But his first attempt at the Zombie in his seminal 1998 book, Grog Log, was not a whole lot better than the imitators. By 2002, however, he had begun to unearth some great Zombie recipes, three of which are published in his second recipe book, Intoxica. One of these, later dubbed the “mid-century version” and purported to be a Don the Beachcomber recipe published in 1950, is shown below.
But Berry was just scratching the surface of Zombie lore. His 2007 masterpiece, Sippin’ Safari, yielded the motherlode. An entire chapter, “A Zombie Jamboree: The Curse of the Undead Drink,” provides the definitive research on the elusive cocktail. There’s more background on the 1950 Zombie, plus a much different 1956 version attributed to the Don the Beachcomber restaurant in Waikiki.
Beachbum Berry mixes a classic Zombie at the Zombie Jam at The Mai-Kai on April 25, 2011.
In 2010, Beachbum Berry Remixed continued the tradition of digging deeper into the history of the drink that started it all. In addition to the discoveries in Intoxica and Sippin’ Safari, Berry presented several new recipes, including a simplified version of the complex creation. You can also find Berry’s Zombie recipes in his Total Tiki app for iPhone and iPad, a unique repository of more than 250 exotic drink recipes from yesterday and today. Launched in 2022, Total Tiki Online is subscription service accessible via all platforms that takes the app to the next level with exciting new information management features.
If you desire a more tactile way to enjoy Berry’s handiwork, pick up a set (or a case) of his signature Zombie Glasses from Cocktail Kingdom, which include the original 1934 and 1950 recipes on the side along with distinctive artwork and packaging. They’re also available at the author’s New Orleans bar and restaurant, Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29, along with the Bum’s own twist on the vintage recipe.
A contemporary Zombie from “Beachbum Berry Remixed.”
In addition to his acclaimed books, app and barware, Berry had a profound influence on today’s Tiki and cocktail scenes over the past decade or two by way of his entertaining and boozy symposiums around the world. His first-ever Zombie seminar took place at The Mai-Kai in April 2011 during the Miami Rum Fest. He resurrected that talk at The Hukilau in April 2012, again at The Mai-Kai, with a few additional surprises. [Full coverage]
Of course, The Mai-Kai’s Zombie is a descendant of Don the Beachcomber’s classics. There’s a reason it’s the top-rated cocktail in this guide, and the only one with a perfect rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Perhaps its the complex, undefinable flavors. The Zombie stands atop the tropical cocktail mountain as a true original with its intense flavors and high potency.
Despite its seeming cacophony of flavors, the Zombie (when made correctly) achieves perfect balance. The combination of spices are exotic and unique. The sweet juices and syrups are counteracted by intense anise and sour notes. And the coup de grâce is the blend of three rums in perfect harmony.
