Beach Bum Berry Remixed

I was referred to Beachbum Berry's works by the captain of a local "Tiki Boat Tour". The boat gives tours of the local harbor, and includes a full bar. The tropical "umbrella drinks", or more accurately Tiki Drinks, were amazing, better than any I'd had before. In talking with the captain, he described Beachbum Berry's works, and their influence on his drink recipes. I purchased this compilation of two books by "The 'Bum", and it is sheer Tiki genius! The author has conducted extensive research to find original recipes from the Tiki phenomenon that arose in the 30's and 40's. Many recipes, held highly secret at the time, were found by talking to the families of original bartenders from legendary establishments like Trader Vic's, Don The Beachcomber’s, and more. Many were found in tattered notebooks or scraps of paper, carried in a bartender's pocket decades ago and now family heirlooms languishing in obscurity until Berry tracked them down. Reading and mixing these recipes, one quickly realizes that most of today's generic bar versions of these drinks are unoriginal, unimaginative, and pale in comparison to the classic recipes. You haven't had a good Mai Tai until you've tried the original recipe, and others in these books. The Zombie was legendary in its own time, but if you order it in a bar today, you'll never know why. Aside from hundreds of amazing drink recipes, the author describes the process of tracking down relatives of long deceased bartenders in hopes of finding recipes that haven't seen the light of day in over 50 years, as well as a thorough, very entertaining history of the Tiki movement, the highly secretive "cloak and dagger" world of coded drink recipes and "Tiki Bar espionage". Buy this compilation book as a treasure chest of delicious drink recipes, and be the star at your next party. Or simply buy it for a glimpse at a historic, very colorful time in our pop culture. history.

Beach Bum Berry is a true cocktail archeologist - he has searched out the history and lore of these drinks and the fantasy world of Tiki to which they belonged from the 1930s to the 1970s - a world which is now being revived.While to me as a student Tiki Drinks were usually a mish-mash of fruit juices with a lot of rum, at one time they were made with as much care and deliberation, and they were excellent! Some were world famous. And now you can make these spectacular drinks yourself.Most of the recipes for the most famous drinks were secret - to prevent your competitors from copying your drinks, so until now it was never possible to recreate the masterpieces of the best of the pioneers and founders of this style - most notably Donn Beach aka Don the Beachcomber, who invented tiki. By interviewing surviving bar-staff (and their children) and going through: papers, notebooks, receipts, magazine, old menus, etc.; Jeff Berry has put together the largest (and best) collection of important recipes - including all three of Don the Beachcombers (known) Zombie recipes.But this is not just another book with a hundred drink recipes.First, it includes all the recipes from the Bum's first two books, and they are unusually clear about how to make the drinks. Most drink books say " then add to crushed ice in a blender and blend", but this book says "add 6 oz of crushed ice to the mixture and blend for 20 seconds."Second, Jeff has gone through all the recipes and tried them (again), and included only the better recipes. And some recipes say "this drink is famous, but we've never liked it much" or "this is Vic's revised version, circa 1950. Not that did, but if you did ask us, we'd say that this one is much improved."Last, there is a lot of entertaining trivia about the bars, the stars, and the world these drinks lived in. Old photos, crazy drink mugs, the works.I own over 100 cocktail recipe books, for Tiki, this is the place to start and end.Aloha!

This is a wonderful book. As many others have noted, the binding is a bit of an issue - it's bound like a paperback and with it's relatively small size it's hard to keep it open flat on a counter or bar while mixing, but that's the only gripe one can level. Jeff Berry, aka "The Bum," has updated his 15 year old Grog Log and Intoxica! very well, rethinking some of the compromises he had to make then (for example, insisting now on fresh squeezed lemon and lime earlier he suggested Sour Mix for some drinks) and taking note of the greater availability of some once hard to find ingredients like falernum. He gives very helpful advice on some syrups one can make easily and inexpensively at home rather than purchasing good but more expensive commercial products. Berry is a realist - he offers alternatives, gives a good summary of rum styles and has added over a hundred new drinks. The printing layout is sometimes difficult to read with badly coordinated colors, but this is a product of the extensive use of period art from the 1930s to the 1970s, so a trade off I'm more than happy to accept. This anthology of two of Berry's books is a bargain, but you will also want to pick up his "Sippin' Safari" where he details much of his research.  Sippin' Safari: In Search of the Great "Lost" Tropical Drink Recipes... and the People Behind Them  One note of interest - Berry has created a very good iPhone App that includes many of his recipes plus the essays on rum and other ingredients. The app is not a replacement for the book - it's a great accessory because it doesn't include all the recipes, many comments are shortened and the artwork is completely missing. For $20 you can have both the book and the app and it's a great package. Plus, you have The Bum's website where he happily takes questions. What's not to love about that?

This is a great book for anyone looking for a tiki recipe book, there are hundreds of recipes and the design of the book is fun.

It's a great read ( so far . . ). Very colourful & very informative. It's the Tiki bar bible. End of . . .

2nd bible of the awesome logs

Great great great job Bum!!! A true expression of "polinesian" cocktail culture! Very well guided book, full of photos and great explanations, while you read you can really feel the polinesian pop culture passing trough you!

The Bum rocks everytime..... Love reading my book shake some sweet drinks and enjoying every tiki minute if it!