Tag Archives: Trader Vic’s

Barmoire, Bars, Cocktails are everywhere, Follow the bouncing ball, Singapore Sling, The maturing scene, Tiki, Tiki

For those long aching for tiki, Arlington’s 4 Kahunas is a painkiller

tiki
J.P. Hunter and Chris Powell, two of the four kahunas, confer at the bar with bar manager Brad Bowden at newly opened 4 Kahunas, a tiki bar in Arlington.

Step past the industrial park-like façade of 4 Kahunas in Arlington and you’ll find yourself in the likes of something the Dallas-Fort Worth area hasn’t had in some time: A real live tiki joint, one that even the most ardent tikiphile can enjoy.

“I never thought I’d work in a place where patrons were battling with little pirate ships and shark mouths,” said bar manager Brad Bowden of one evening’s crowd. “They were like little kids.“

With a four-page tiki drink menu backed by a thatched-roof bar, island-inspired wall art and a soundtrack infused with surf and exotica, 4 Kahunas embraces the tiki aesthetic with a fervor not seen in DFW since the days of Trader Vic’s.

Tiki-philes know that its culture extends far beyond cocktails, but ever since Vic’s sailed off into the horizon, those who’ve carry a torch for tiki have only marginally seen their daiquiri dreams fulfilled, from Proper’s ongoing three-month “tiki pop-up” in Fort Worth to, in Dallas, a short-lived tiki reboot of Sunset Lounge in 2013 and the confused clubbiness of Pilikia.

Otherwise, tiki has been relegated to a random once-a-week or off-menu exercise, with its fruity coconut libations periodically surfacing at places like Lower Greenville’s Rapscallion, East Dallas’ Lounge Here and The People’s Last Stand in Mockingbird Station.

4 Kahunas, Arlington
Bowden is a long-time practitioner of the tiki craft, including drinks like Don the Beachcomber’s classic 1930s cocktail, the Missionary’s Downfall.

Now, in a budding commercial complex behind a stretch of Division Street car dealerships in Arlington, 4 Kahunas – which marked its grand opening on Sunday – has planted its tiki flag, with a modest but lovingly appointed space with a half-dozen or so stools at the bar, a couple of high-tops and several large booths.

“I’ve had more people ask for Singapore Slings here in Arlington than I ever did in Dallas,” Bowden says – and the tiki classic isn’t even on the menu. “I had no idea there was so much interest in the Mid Cities.”

Among the drink’s fans is Marc Davis, a Hawaiian-born Filipino/Pacific-Islander who runs a local food truck called Smoke and Pickle. Having stumbled onto 4 Kahunas while seeking a parking spot at Arlington’s 4thof July celebration, he was suddenly gripped by memories of his island upbringing and his dad’s love for Singapore Slings and Marlboros. “I like the low-key vibe,” he says.

Tiki’s laid-back Polynesian flavor flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, with Trader Vic’s and its Zombies and Mai Tais leading the way. Though the trend would fizzle within a few decades, the ongoing re-emergence of craft cocktails revived interest in its tropical tipples, with places like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and PKNY in New York among the first to resuscitate its rummy riches.

Several years ago, on a visit to Vegas,4 Kahunas co-owners J.P. Hunter and Chris Powell visited the venerable Frankie’s Tiki Room, and it was enough to revive Hunter’s California childhood memories – the L.A. beaches, the plastic monkey cocktail garnishes his mom would give him off her drinks.

Hunter, a University of Texas-Arlington grad nearing retirement in the construction business in Houston, was already eyeing a third act. Why not do something he really enjoyed? He and Powell recruited two other college friends as investors, their four caricatured faces now represented by large carved wooden tiki heads behind the bar.

“Our only missing link was a bar manager,” Hunter says. “And lo and behold, there’s Brad.”

tiki
The bar teems with tiki touches like island art pieces and mermaid bag hooks, fully embracing the culture’s Polynesian vibe.

Bowden, already spinning tiki classics and variations at Lounge Here in East Dallas, was more than ready to crank out Painkillers and Headhunters (as well as my personal tiki favorite, the flaming-lime-boat-topped Jet Pilot).  With Bowden on board, 4 Kahunas quietly opened on June 9, but it wasn’t long before word spread among fanatical tikiphiles, never mind the out-of-the-way location.

“We’ve already had people coming in from Chicago, Atlanta, Florida,” Hunter says.

It’s a decidedly unchain-y place in a bar-and-grill-leaning city that Hunter says finally has greater ambitions – and affordable Arlington represented a chance to be part of a scene that’s just starting to grow.  Says Hunter: “The train is just leaving the station.”

Brunch, Cocktails, Most excellent ideas, Restaurants, Tiki, Uptown

Tiki brunch: Why not? Barter dares to ask

Barter, Dallas
Tiki: It’s not not-for-breakfast anymore. The Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch, from Don The Beachcomber.

Peanut butter and chocolate. Chicken and waffles. John Denver and the Muppets. So wrong and yet: so right.

Well, here’s another contender: Brunch and tiki cocktails. Wait, what?

Hold on: Hear Barter’s Rocco Milano out.

“Brunch really lends itself to the tiki experience,” Milano says. While traditional brunch cocktails like Bellinis and Mimosas are marked by fruit and effervescence, tiki drinks likewise complement breakfast-y foods with fresh juices and refreshing, vibrant flavors. “They sparkle and pop in the same way,” Milano says.

If that’s about all the convincing you need to try a Mai Tai with your eggs Benedict, then you’re in luck: Barter debuted its tiki brunch this weekend, and it’s a welcome wrinkle to the whole morning-after routine.

Tiki brunch at Barter, Dallas

Despite its “Dallas cuisine” theme, both Milano, Barter’s beverage director, and bartender Brad Bowden had been looking for a good reason to launch a tiki brunch menu at the newly opened restaurant. They spent hours scouring old cocktail books for viable recipes, and among their research materials was a recently published tome of tiki-dom, Beachbum Jerry’s Potions of the Caribbean. Inside, they found a reproduction of a 1940s-era tiki menu from an old Dallas hotel – drinks like the Navy Grog, Bird of Paradise, Samoan Fog Cutter and Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch. “We were kind of blown away by that,” Bowden says.

That, plus the fact that patio weather is just around the corner, was all the inspiration they needed. All four cocktails are among a half-dozen on the new brunch menu. (And at $7 apiece, not a bad deal.)

Barter, Dallas
Ice, ice, baby: The Navy Grog and Hula Girl are among Barter’s tiki brunch lineup

Tiki cocktails flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, a California-born craze popularized by bars like Trader Vic’s that gave us fruity rum classics like the aforementioned Mai Tai and the Zombie. Though tiki would fizzle within a few decades, the re-emergence of craft-cocktail culture revived interest in the trend; places like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and New York’s PKNY breathed life back into a genre borne of rum, brandy, fruit juice and kitsch, giving tiki drinks a modest, if still mostly a niche, footing.

Tiki reappeared in Dallas a couple of years ago, with The People’s Last Stand crushing ice and whipping up flaming punch bowls on Sundays; meanwhile, the now-defunct Chesterfield had a handful of Polynesian tipples submerged in its menu’s oceanic depths. Early last year, the resuscitated Sunset Lounge on Ross Avenue became the first of the area’s new craft-cocktail bars to embrace a full-on tiki identity.

Barter, Dallas
The Samoan Fog Cutter: A lot of good stuff going on here.

Barter’s mini tiki production gives the often-underappreciated cocktail genre a new stage, one worth adding to your brunch tryout roster. The rummy Navy Grog and acai-liqueur-based Hula Girl, with their flamboyant ice cones, are solid; and I grew to love the heady Samoan Fog Cutter, with its aggressive mix of brandy, sherry and a trio of rums. But the star of the bunch may be Bowden’s favorite, the Polynesian Pearl Diver’s Punch, which requires a pre-assembled “Pearl Diver’s mix” of clarified butter, allspice dram, cinnamon and vanilla syrups. Tasted alone, the goopy mix has a candy-corn-like taste, but it gives the cocktail – including three rums, orange and lime, plus the nutty, spiced-citrus liqueur Velvet Falernum – admirable depth.

The drink is also referenced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, though it technically wasn’t invented until 70-plus years after the movie’s time period at the pioneering Polynesian-themed Hollywood bar, Don The Beachcomber. But apparently even Quentin Tarantino knows a good drink when he sees one, and now, 70-plus more years after its invention, you can judge for yourself. It won’t be served up in a coconut, but isn’t that a minor quibble when you can pair rum with your breakfast hash?

BARTER, 3232 McKinney Ave., Dallas. 214-969-6898. Brunch starting at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Barmoire

Rum for your life

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Tiki drinks: Not traditionally my thing. I’ve often considered them the fruity equivalent of the tiki torch, a mid-20th-century novelty relegated to some musty backyard corner and occasionally dusted off for special occasions. (Though I must admit the Jet Pilot painstakingly constructed for me a few years ago at Seattle’s Tavern Law did rev up my yo-ho-ho.)

The California-born trend, popularized by Trader Vic’s, eventually fizzled. But with the last decade’s re-emergence of craft-cocktail culture, embers flickered in the ashes, and places like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and New York’s PKNY have breathed life back into a genre borne of rum, brandy, fruit juice and kitsch, giving tiki drinks a modest, if still mostly a niche, footing.

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Sunset Lounge GM Nico Ponce picked these glasses especially for a hefty rum drink he calls the Captain’s Bumbo.

Last summer, Dallas’ The People’s Last Stand proudly carried the tiki torch on Sundays, whipping up flaming punch bowls and crushing ice like nobody’s business until the tradition flared out in December. And downtown, the Chesterfield has a handful of Polynesian tipples submerged in its menu’s oceanic depths.

But with this week’s lively grand opening of the resuscitated Sunset Lounge, on Ross Avenue just east of downtown, the local tiki revival is fully underway. Here’s a place daring to be all tiki, all the time, with classic drinks like the Rum Runner, Zombie and Bahama Mama dotting a menu of mostly house originals from general manager Nico Ponce.

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Along with the showy glassware, this week’s grand opening party also featured showy footwear.

Tiki generally calls for rum, though brandy or even gin sometimes get involved. To that is added lemon or lime, possibly a flavored cordial and sweetener, often reflecting island nuts and/or spices.

The Sunset is a makeover of a defunct dance club of the same name. Owners Josh Sepkowitz and Kyle Noon describe the re-do as “a neighborhood bar with a 1960s Southern California vibe,” and it’s hard to disagree: The low-ceilinged atmosphere is both cozy and classy, a low-lit watering hole submerged in palm fronds and aquamarine.

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Eddie “Lucky” Campbell, your Monday main man at the Sunset.

Eddie “Lucky” Campbell, Dallas’ itinerant and feisty barman, has been signed on to anchor the bar on Mondays, not to head the program as reported elsewhere. “It’s Nico’s program,” said Campbell, who spends the bulk of his time at Uptown’s Standard Pour. “I’m just going over there to back him up and give him a hand.”

Though Campbell’s influence portends great promise, the cocktail menu for now strikes me as small, probably because so many of the drinks are similar in profile. Among the highlights: the Texas Punch, a mix of house-made spiked horchata with red chile powder; and the Redrum, a rum-infused twist on the standard vodka/Red Bull. But if it be hidden treasure you seek, I’ve got one word for you, matey: guacamole.

— Marc Ramirez, 1/24/13

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Not guacamole. Still tasty.