Gibberish: Texas Tiki Week

Showing posts with label Texas Tiki Week. Show all posts

Thursday, October 03, 2019

Texas Tiki Week: Tiki Market

With the arrival of Saturday, so too came my favorite part of Texas Tiki Week: The tiki marketplace! It seems like those folks living on the West Coast have some sort of marketplace every week or so. Their embarrassment of riches in that area is just obscene. For us folks living in Texas, however, tiki marketplace comes but once a year (okay, fine. I'll grant you that Dallas Tiki Week has one as well, but that one's a four-hour drive for me, as opposed to 40 minutes). Tiki marketplace is an opportunity to engage in tiki sensory overload. This year, it was at Contigo, where it was two years ago when I attended my first marketplace. This year, instead of taking up a corner of the parking lot, the marketplace occupied the courtyard and a large section of the interior, as a hedge against fickle Texas weather.

I have to say, after some cursory doubts, the arrangement turned out to be fantastic. This was the largest marketplace ever. I'm not privy to the actual numbers, but I'd say there were twice as many vendors as last year and easily triple the number of shoppers. More important than the raw numbers, though, was the sheer diversity of the vendors. There weren't 20 people peddling vintage clothes, or 17 pushing mugs. There were so many different people with a broad array of wares. Yes, vintage clothing and mugs were well-represented, but there were wood carvers, cookies (!), hairdressers, travel agents(!), artists, lamp-makers, jewelry-makers... the selection was overwhelming. And quality across the board.

I know I'll leave out people if I try to list everyone vending, but I gotta try to list everyone vending. I could've happily blown thousands of dollars in a very short amount of time, but alas, I did not have thousands of dollars available for said blowing. Vendors included (in no particular order):

I know I'm leaving some out, so anyone who sees an omission may message me and I'll update that list. But damn, that's an impressive lineup!

Sadly, this is my final report. I wasn't able to make it to the Hale Pele popup that evening, which really stinks, because Hale Pele was the first "real" tiki bar I ever visited (after a string of unimpressive pretenders) and got me hooked on the whole thing. We were also unable to make the Lake Austin cruise on Sunday, which concluded Texas Tiki Week. This also stinks, because we really like the folks behind Quiet Village, who provided the cocktails on the cruise. I sincerely hope the cruise becomes a tradition, because I'd hate to think I missed my chance!

That said, let me offer my completely biased and partial critique of Texas Tiki Week. First up, this was probably the best one yet. Again, I have no idea of how much money was raised for USBGATX, bur from a purely spectator's point of view, the week was ambitious and fun. And the beverage sponsors! Holy moly, there was an impressive lineup of quality spirits on parade this year! Nothing against Jaegermeister, but the broadened palate was nice.

Nothing's perfect, and there were issues. Having so many seminars during the day, during the week, has got to cut into attendance. I could only get away from work a few times, and missed several seminars I'd have liked to see. Shannon Mustipher's seminar, for instance--I've heard her on so many podcasts this past year that she feels like a close, personal friend, and it would've been nice to get an autographed copy of her book. John Mulder's seminar had a nice turnout, but I know of several people who'd have liked to attend but couldn't because of the timing. Also, I recall that far more people participated in the paint-your-own-tiki-mug event last year, which not surprisingly, was held in the evening. This is a nifty offering, and I hope it stays as an ongoing tradition.

A significant part of the problem stems from the fact that, unlike the big annual tiki events like Tiki Caliente, Tiki Oasis, Luau at the Lake or Hukilau, Texas Tiki Week doesn't have a physical base of operations for the events to center around. They're dependent on the kindness and generosity of the various, disparate venues around town to cooperate and provide facilities for the various programming events. This can come up and burn the organizers, as we saw this year when Anthem abruptly left Texas Tiki Week high and dry less than a day prior to the Rainey Street Crawl. And as I said in a previous post, Rainey Street was overrun by a party crowd that didn't give two shakes about tiki.

A partial solution is obvious, if not simple: Get some dedicated tiki venues to build the week's events around. If I won a hundred million in the lottery tomorrow, I could build a Polynesian-themed resort hotel and we'd all be sipping mai tais by the pool thinking how awesome like is. Short of that, we have to depend on those intrepid die-hards who keep plugging along, trying to open tiki bars locally ("localy" being a relative term, as I don't live in, or particularly near, Austin). Now, there's no way Tiki Tatsu-Ya could accommodate everyone participating in Texas Tiki Week next year. Heck, if the fates smile on us and Quiet Village opens by summer 2020, that still wouldn't be enough venue space. But that would provide an anchor, a nexus, a base of operations to serve as a reference point throughout the week. Heck, assuming the Esquire Tavern group gets their Bamboo Ben-designed tiki bar on the River Walk up and running in the next 11 months, between them and Hot Joy, there's no reason why San Antonio can't be a serious participant in Texas Tiki Week (yes, it's origins are in support of USBGATX, but it's not called Austin Tiki Week, now is it?). I could envision a party bus from Austin to SA. I can also envision a home bar tour around Austin, as I know there are enough impressive home bars there to blow the minds of some of these out-of-towners that come in thinking Texas is a tiki wasteland (which it was not too long ago, but not quite so much anymore).

My carping from the peanut gallery aside, I applaud all of the volunteers who made this thing happen. They did an outstanding job, and did so while facing down a daunting array of obstacles and SNAFUs--only some of which I'm sure I'm aware of. Having been ringleader in my share of non-profit events, I know it's a thankless job where success or failure is measured by the enjoyment of others. In this case, many, many others experienced a tremendous amount of enjoyment this year. Kudos to everyone involved--you deserve all the accolades coming your way.

Texas Tiki Week: Opening Night
Texas Tiki Week: Eekum Bookum
Texas Tiki Week: Rainey Street Crawl

Now Playing: Ethel Azama Exotic Dreams
Chicken Ranch Central

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

Texas Tiki Week: Rainey Street Crawl

Friday arrived, and with it the Texas Tiki Week tiki crawl along the Rainey Street historical district. There is a wide variety of bars here in old houses and the like, with Lei Low from Houston scheduled to hold a pop-up at Half Step, and Hot Joy from San Antonio to do the same at Anthem. Alas, Anthem backed out of the deal at literally the 11th hour, really stirring up a shit storm of epic proportions, and I'm not even aware of what went on behind the scenes. Maybe they had their reasons, but it's still a dick move to back out on something that's been advertised for a month, leaving Hot Joy high and dry. Fortunately, the hole-in-the-wall bar Little Brother stepped up and gave Hot Joy space for the afternoon. The bad news was that it was the afternoon, when most of us working folks were working and unable to enjoy their cocktail menu. And staggering the offerings kinda defeats the purpose of a crawl. Geraldine's also participated in the crawl, although they're a couple of blocks over.

I arrived around 9 p.m., and after braving the traffic and crowds (which aren't as bad as 6th Street, but still a bit rowdy and cross-eyed drunk for my tastes) I found Little Brother. I wanted to patronize them for stepping up to host Hot Joy. Inside, well, I was surprised by how little inside there was. It reminded me of a cramped, dark hot dog stand. There was a crowd around the bar, where a bartender was concocting a massive fishbowl drink for "7-10 people" although he confided in one of the girls there that he could legally sell it to as few as five people. Someone else inquired about one and the bartender said he couldn't make it because they only had one fish bowl, and it was in use. Clearly, this was not a craft cocktail bar and the patrons weren't well-versed in tiki. Still, I looked over the menu and settled on their Jaws 2 cocktail, a rum-and-coconut mixture. It came served in a hollowed-out coconut cup with a bamboo straw. The got points in my book for using a real coconut and not a plastic one. The bamboo straw was a nice touch, as was the silly gummy shark garnish. The cocktail itself wasn't bad. It could've used maybe a touch more sour for balance, but it wasn't cloyingly sweet. I finished it and move on to Half Step as the party people were still working on their fish bowl.

Half Step was crowded. I went inside and realized the crush of people at the bar weren't there for tiki drinks. I forced my way outside and was greeted by more people. There was a small satellite bar set up with a sign that said "Not Lei Low" so clearly there was no tiki to be had there. Where then? Around the side I discovered another bar, with another crush of people. This one, however, was staffed by the good folks from Lei Low, serving up a heaping helping of Donn Beach classic cocktail recipes.

Don't believe me about the crowd? This below is the scene that greeted me. Huge crush of people, with the line moving very slowly. One woman behind me complained loudly about the line's pace, and looked to be spoiling for a fight with anyone who might've even thought about cutting. After an extended period of general griping, she burst out, "How long to I have to wait for a f#@&!^% beer?" At which point another woman in the next line over said, "This line's for the tiki pop-up. You do know there's another bar serving beer inside, don't you?" The cranky lady then stormed off in a huff. In her defense, though, there was no exterior signage explaining things to anyone. The cool menus Lei Low had printed up explained things. And there were signs inside the Lei Low popup bar proclaiming it to be "Donn's Half Step Hideaway." But beyond that? Not so much.

When I finally got to the front of the line, my first cocktail was Don's Own Grog. The menu card described it as St. Lucia Aged rum, 110 proof Agricole, French blackberry liqueur, hibiscus grenadine, lemon juice and Angostura bitters. I can assure you, it was delicious. A blue rock candy stick was included as a garnish, and I chewed on this most of the evening.

My final cocktail was the Tahitian Rhum Punch, described as "Exotic fruits admirably mixed with Mexican limes and Jamaica and Martinique aged rums. It was quite delicious as well. It really showed how skilled the Lei Low staff was, rapidly making all of these Donn Beach drinks that weren't on their regular menu in Houston. I regretted that I couldn't sample everything they offered, as I had to drive home (yes, I pace myself by drinking water between cocktails and keep an eye on elapsed time). The Pearl Diver was an exceptionally flashy drink, served in a half-shell mug that people with know prior knowledge of tiki kept gravitating toward. I love a good Pearl Diver, and would've loved to try it.

I saw a number of friends there, including David and Jennifer. I'd really wanted to catch David playing with his band, the Phantomatics, bet because I am dumb I misunderstood and thought they were playing all night. Instead, they did one set earlier in the evening and by the time I got there, the Boss Jaguars were tearing it up onstage with surf guitars (they were quite good, although I was still miffed about missing the Phantomatics).

So here's the thing: For the Rainey Street tiki crawl, maybe 95 percent of the people there had no clue it was going on. The actual number of tiki folk was relatively small. I had one person ask me if I was in a group or club or something because of the "patterned shirts" he'd seen a few people wearing. The people standing in line for tiki cocktails more often than not ordered beer or vodka and soda when they got to the front of the line, utterly indifferent to the tiki cocktails being offered. I can see the thinking behind the event--expose more people to tiki who might not otherwise encounter it. Grow the tribe, so to speak. The trouble is, the crowd out on Rainey Street on a Friday night isn't looking for complexity and craft cocktails. They're looking to get shit-faced and laid. Full stop. I think it was a disservice to the great bartenders and cocktails being served that night. A slower night, with less "get drunk as quickly as possible" attitude would strike me as a better opportunity to draw in folks and convert them to the cult of tiki. Maybe. I can't guarantee Thursday or Wednesday night would work any better. What I do know is that Friday was a mess, with roving gangs of bachelorette parties shotgunning beers and taking tequila shots, and most definitely not looking to savor the grassy complexity of Rhum J.M.

I think the real problem rests in the fact that Austin does not yet have a real tiki bar to serve as ground zero for Texas Tiki Week. By this time next year, Tiki Tatsu-Ya should be open, and if the fates are really smiling on us, Quiet Village as well. Either or both would alleviate Texas Tiki Week's dependence on bars and patrons who have no interest in tiki. My fingers, they are crossed.

(I still had a good time, though, in case you were wondering.)