The Reading Room

The primary source — Vic’s own manual, in his own voice, Mai Tai included (1972 revision). Long out of print; worth the used-bookstore hunt.

Where the modern tiki revival starts on paper — Berry’s first field notebook of rescued recipes, published when almost nobody was looking.

The urban archaeology that gave the whole culture back its name — Kirsten dug the temples, mugs, menus, and matchbooks out of thrift stores and defined what "tiki style" even means.

Donn’s recipes and story as kept by his widow Phoebe — the closest thing to the Beachcomber’s own book.

The second log of the rescue mission — deeper into the vanished bars and the drinks that went down with them.

The guidebook that drove the routes before us — a state-by-state census of what was still standing in the early revival. A kindred spirit and a time capsule; many of its stops are now on our Dead Reckoning layer.

The food side of the story — pupu platters, flaming appetizers, and the mid-century menus that fed the tiki temples.

The essential text. Berry tracked down the surviving bartenders of the Don the Beachcomber era and decoded the coded recipes they carried — the Zombie among them. Nearly every "lost recipe, found" story in tiki runs through this book. A 10th-anniversary edition (2017) added more.

The crossroads where tiki met mid-century modernism — A-frames, witco, and the architects who built the South Seas in the suburbs.

Grog Log and Intoxica! remastered into one volume with corrections and new finds — the working copy most home bars actually pour from.

500 years of the rum canon before and beneath tiki — the island drinks the beachcombers borrowed from. Where the Daiquiri, Planter’s Punch, and the Hurricane get their histories told properly.

The full arc — how America conjured its own Polynesian paradise, told for the Musée du quai Branly exhibition in Paris. The one-volume history to hand a curious friend.

The definitive chronicle of the greatest surviving tiki temple — the Thornton brothers, the Molokai bar, the mystery drink girls — by the historian whose Grogalizer inspired how our Taste of History handles recipes.

The modern era’s bible — history, technique, rum scholarship, and the philosophy of running a great tiki bar, from the founders of San Francisco’s Smuggler’s Cove.