Day in and day out, one of the most popular post here at Cocktail Wonk is Minimalist Tiki: What you truly need to make the classics at home.
At long last, I’ve finally heeded Mrs. Wonk’s wisdom that this article was a book needed to be written. Without further ado, we’re pleased to announce THE BOOK!
Minimalist Tiki: A Cocktail Wonk Look at Classic Libations and the Modern Tiki Vanguard
Minimalist Tiki is a hefty, no-compromises book—hardcover and in full, glorious color, with more than 300 pages of geeking out, photos and recipes. It weighs over 3 pounds! We hope it will sit proudly alongside the books that inspired it.
The book has four sections:
• Minimalist Tiki—the basics of creating a tiki setup, including ingredients and tools.
• Beyond Minimalist Tiki—step up your game with enhanced garnishes, advanced ingredients and glassware, and recipe improvisation.
• The Rums of Tiki—did you think I could write a tiki book without a deep dive into rum? It’s without a doubt, the most comprehensive dive into rum found in any tiki book.
• The New Tiki Vanguard—two dozen of our favorite bartenders and bars who are carrying the tiki tradition forward…and more than 100 original recipes from some of the best minds in Tiki today.
One of our goals with Minimalist Tiki is to celebrate some of the bartenders and bars who are in the vanguard of today’s tiki and rum movements but who aren’t necessarily familiar faces…yet. Each of them gets their own multi-page section. We’re incredibly honored that the folks and bars listed below provided us with so many great new recipes, most of which have never been in print. We appreciate the trust that we’d do right by them in our pages. Our contributors:
The Bartenders
- Brian Maxwell
- Chad Austin
- Daniel “Doc” Parks
- Daniele Dalla Pola
- Jason Alexander
- Jeanie Grant
- Justin Wojslaw
- Kevin Beary
- Marie King
- Oriol Elias
- Shelby Allison/Erin Hayes
- Tiki Lindy
- Zac Overman
The Bars
- CANE Rhum Bar
- Dirty Dick
- The Inferno Room
- Laki Kane
- Lost Lake
- Navy Strength
- Pagan Idol
- Rumba
- The Shameful Tiki Room
- Trailer Happiness
If we’re so lucky as to do a 2nd edition, we’ll add even more of today’s tiki vanguard!
My initial writing of the first three sections started in November of 2018, and mostly wrapped up by January of 2019. I then placed the book in Mrs. Wonk’s capable hands, and began work on yet another book, which I hope to share details of soon.
Along with Mrs. Wonk, who project managed everything, the book’s incredible look and feel comes from two other critical players: Our dear friend Lauren Blass is an amazing graphic designer who wrangled everything we gave her into the gorgeous finished product. And many of the incredible images, including the cover shot, were taken by the wildly talented Seattle photographer Justin Alford:
In case you’re wondering, this book is self-published and entirely self-funded. Our small yet amazing team did everything except running the actual printing press—and Mrs. Wonk and I will handle all the order fulfillment. So, while you won’t find Minimalist Tiki for 55% off the cover price on Amazon with free Prime shipping, know that every copy sold means so much more to us.
The first five copies off the press were emailed to us, so we have them to show off. The full order is slated to arrive by boat in early July. In the meantime, check out minimalisttiki.com for more pictures and images—and pre-order your copies today!
Good luck! Looks great, order placed.
I’m glad that only one of the 3 recipes you posted have an infusion (unlike the book I bought recently where 90+% of the recipes had a specialty ingredient and will probably never make them). I ordered my book yesterday BTW and look forward to its arrival!
Thank you! We really worked hard to get recipes that are interesting, without being too challenging to make, especially in a home environment. In fact, that guidance was part of my recipe request to the bartenders. I’m pretty happy with how things turned out.
Will it be availible in Europe (amazon.uk.co)
Huge fan of your site and your writing – Looking forward to reading (and mixing)
Greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark
Thank you!
The book won’t be on Amazon. We are selling it ourselves. Amazon takes an enormous fee, over half of the list price.
We can ship anywhere. Unfortunately shipping outside of the US is ridiculously expensive.
Some people are working to arrange US pickup. Or people bringing it to them from the US.
It’s unfortunate, but we don’t control the shipping companies prices.
Thanks Lasse,
No plan to sell it via Amazon. They take a huge percentage of the price. We’d make very little profit per book.
We’re looking at ways to make it available in Europe.
I totally understand and of course prefer to give my money to you, and not Amazon.
It is a must-buy book 🙂
There are several ways to lower the price of crazy international shipping costs. For example, you could use eBay, or make the eBook version available.
Hello! Not sure how eBay would help with our cost. Can you explain?
An eBook version is being considered, but will not be happening anytime in the near term future. It requires more work than most people realize – our book is very layout intensive and won’t automatically scale to all screen formats.
I definitely understand going to solo-publish route! You should be rewarded for your work, not a giant book store being rewarded for it. I don’t suppose there is/will be a pdf/ebook version for those in super expensive shipping areas though? Would love to buy and support your work (I’m slowly working my way through the whole blog!) but the shipping is just too much to get the book here for it to be feasible for me.
Thanks Ben. I very much appreciate the support. We’ve pondered making an e-version available via Kindle or similar. But not ready to take that step real soon.
Hey Matt,
Congratulations on getting the book out. Any news on European distribution? Shipping is prohibitely expensive…
Congratulations and Good luck! buying the book directly from you will be preferred at any cost.
Hi Matt,
I’m so curious about this book. I would love to order! What should be the P&P costs to Holland?
Maybe their’s a possibilty that i could help shipping to other country’s in Europe to interested people.
More books would lower the shipping costs i suppose…
Best regards,
Richard Blesgraaf