Mrs. Wonk and I are overwhelmed by the response to our book, Minimalist Tiki, which we released a year ago. We’ve got some exciting news to share on that front!
TL;DR — We’re bringing thirty new modern recipes to light, each a modern take on a Minimalist Tiki Classic Thirty recipes like the Mai Tai, Zombie, and Saturn. And they’re all from a recent collaboration with some of Tiki Vanguard bartenders featured in the book.
Did I mention we’ve added a new Tiki Vanguard member? Well, now you know!
So, What’s the Story?
It’s really a two-part story. Thanks to so many generous people purchasing Minimalist Tiki, we sold out both the first and second printings faster than we thought. Knowing we had more demand for it, we committed to a third printing.
There were definitely some … minor updates we wanted to make in a third printing. But we also wanted it to make the book even better, without tearing it down to the studs and rebuilding. But what to do?
When COVID-19 hit we were very aware of its impact on our vanguard friends who’d been so instrumental in helping us create the book. We wanted to work with them again in a meaningful way.
One morning, a flash of inspiration struck. We didn’t want to mess with any of the books well-loved recipes crafted by our vanguard; libations like the Commando Grog and Angostura Colada have embedded themselves in today’s Tiki consciousness. But…. there was chapter 17, where we provided the Classic Thirty recipes. Hmm….
Many of those recipes like the 1944 Mai Tai are known by heart by tiki afficionados. If not, a quick Google search finds them easily enough.
Our vision shaped up: Divvy up those thirty recipes among participating vanguard members, requesting they create a modern spin on the original while conforming to the Minimalist Tiki ethos. That is, focus on common ingredients, and no barrel-aged banana foam!
As you might imagine, they outdid themselves. In our third printing, each of their recipes replaced its inspiration.
Oh…. One more thing. There’s another bonus recipe somewhere else in third printing. See if you can find it!
The New Guy
I mentioned previously that there’s a new vanguard member, joining the ranks of incredibly talented people like Jason Alexander, Marie King, Brian Maxwell, Oriol Elias, Chad Austin, and many more. So, who’s joining them in the pages of Minimalist Tiki?
All the way from Trailer Happiness in London, meet Gergő “Sergio” Muráth! A man with no shortage of opinions, especially when it comes to rum and Tiki.
Sergio contributed the following modern takes:
- Doomsday Machine (Bali Bali)
- The Martinique Lighthouse (Fog Cutter)
- Neptune’s Wrath (Navy Grog)
- Space Age Cooler (Saturn)
- Three Dragons and a Dash (Three Dots and a Dash)
Joining Sergio are five of our original vanguard who brought the following goodness to the table:
Oriol Elias (aka Three of Strong)
- 138 Swizzle (151 Swizzle)
- Donga Daiquiri (Donga Punch)
- Señor Diablo (El Diablo)
- Bahía de Montego (Montego Bay)
- Agricole Scorpion (Scorpion)
- Caribbean Zombie (Zombie)
Inferno Room (Chris Coy, Eric Bogan, Eli Sanchez)
- Machete Drinks (Bolo)
- Copperhead’s Fang (Cobra’s Fang)
- Dr. Funk E. Sanchez (Dr. Funk)
- Bush Pilot (Jet Pilot)
- Pineapple Paralysis (Polynesian Paralysis)
- Porch Light (Port Light)
Brian Maxwell (Shaker of Spirits)
- The Death Star (Chief Lapu Lapu)
- By the Toe (Eastern Sour)
- When the Levee Breaks (Hurricane)
- Mr. Black & Gold (Mr. Bali Hai)
- Pining for the Fjords (Test Pilot)
Daniel “Doc” Parks
- On a Coconut Island (Cocoanut Grove)
- Village Punch (Planter’s Punch)
- R.B.R. — Rum Barrel Remix (Rum Barrel)
- Headhunter’s Bounty (Shrunken Skull)
Chad Austin
- Sundress Weather (Mai Tai)
- Sonando (Painkiller)
- Slippah Sippah (Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai)
- The Stunner (Suffering Bastard)
Can I Get a Sample?
We’re very excited about the new recipes. They run the gamut from extremely accessible to those that our more dedicated readers will relish. None require chasing down eggshells from a nearly extinct, flightless Peruvian bird, or necessitate a $2000 rotary evaporator.
For example, here’s the When the Levee Breaks, Brian Maxwell’s modern take on a Hurricane. Hurricanes are familiar to Brian as a former New Orleans native. Now he’s slinging Tiki goodness at Hidden Harbor, in Pittsburgh, PA.
When the Levee Breaks – Brian Maxwell
- 1 oz lemon juice
- 1 oz orange juice
- 0.75 oz falernum
- 1.5 oz fassionola syrup
- 0.5 oz Fernet Branca, to float
- 0.5 oz unaged Jamaican overproof rum (Rum Fire)
- 1.5 oz moderately aged rum (Barbancourt 8)
- 1.5 oz unaged molasses-based rum (Maggie’s Farm White)
Build all ingredients except Fernet Branca in shaker. Shake or flash blend with crushed ice, pour into a hurricane glass. Top with fresh crushed ice. Float with Fernet Branca.
Garnish with mint sprigs, an orange slice, a cherry, and an out-turned paper umbrella.
I Want the New Recipes but Already Bought the Book!
Never fear! We knew folks would have this question.
We’re working on an e-book of just the new recipes. No final details to share just yet. This isn’t something we can do overnight, as other projects and commitments have Mrs. Wonk and I chained to our keyboards. Rest assured, you’ll know when it’s ready!
UPDATE: The e-book is available via Kindle: The Tiki Vanguard Modern Thirty
In the meanwhile, if you’ve already purchased Minimalist Tiki and want the third printing at a reduced price (“Now with fewer typos!”), you should have received an email with a discount code. This code will only work one time and will only work for existing customers.
If you don’t receive the email, it’s likely because you’ve opted out of email updates from our site. Feel free to email minimalist.tiki @ gmail.com and we’ll look into it.
In short, we have a plan, but are still sorting out all the final details to do it right.
Where are the Original Minimalist Tiki Classic Thirty Recipes?
We’ve got you covered there too! It’s just a two-click experience to find the original recipes, as featured on the sites of some of our favorite authors, including Jeff “Beachbum” Berry and Frederick Yarm, aka Cocktail Virgin Slut.
To see the complete list Minimalist Tiki Classic Thirty drink names, with links to each recipes, hit this link: https://minimalisttiki.com/minimalist30
Summary
Thanks for reading this far! Our third printing books have just arrived in New Orleans (August 22nd, 2020) and barring hurricanes and man-made disasters, we’re shipping out books as fast as we can!
I love my copy of Minimalist Tiki, but I use it almost 100% for the well organized 30 classic recipes and associate ingredient table and buying guide for ingredients. While, I understand your explanation for removing the 30 it will mean that I no longer feel like I can recommend this book for beginners and indeed it makes the name “minimalist” a misnomer. If the sample recipe is any indication you’ve taken the classics and made them more esoteric and inaccessible to newcomers. I’m quite sad for the people who I have over to try a tiki drink and show off your book to that I will now have to send them elsewhere if they want to get started. Best of luck with your new addition, but I wanted to offer honest feedback that your book seems to have gone from the best beginners guide to tiki to another maximalist tiki recipe book.
Hi Cory,
Thanks for your detailed comment. I respect your opinion and appreciate your honest feedback.
We have a wide range of readers, from absolute beginners to Tiki bar owners. It would be well nigh impossible to make everybody 100 percent happy. In my experience talking to readers, the vast majority of them already own Jeff Berry’s or Martin Cate’s books. For them, the addition of the Classic 30 recipes provides no additional value. In fact, the Neatpour.com review of our book says:
“The authors understand that most readers already own a copy of Potions of the Caribbean. Their goal is to bring us new, simple drinks not to repackage the Donn the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s classics…. Yet, this collection [The Classic 30] feels tacked-on like an afterthought.”
All of those recipes are readily available online. To make it extremely easy for reader to find them, I created a page with links to all 30 recipes.
To be honest, the Classic 30 Recipe’s primary interest for me in writing the book was as a dataset to calculate the most common ingredients. I strongly believe that if you picked a completely different set of 30 classic recipes and did the same analysis, you’d get very similar results in terms of the most-used ingredients. The “buying guide” wouldn’t change, and it remains in the book.
To add to that, if you page through the original 100 new recipes, there are plenty that hew to the same ingredient sets as the Classic 30. Jason Alexander and Tiki Lindy’s recipes immediately come to mind. I would hardly call the recipes like the Commando Grog or Quarantine Order “maximalist”.
So, to wrap up, agreed. In an ideal world, the Classic 30 recipes would remain alongside new recipes. However, behind the scenes there are often other factors at play. We can’t make forward progress for the majority of readers without breaking a few dishes, so to speak.
I agree with Cory. I’ve just started working my way through MT (2nd printing) and love it. While the new recipes in the 3rd printing sound great for me, since I have Smugglers Cove and other books, losing them takes away my recommendation of MT as a one stop shop for beginners, which is too bad.
I bought the new printing, and I am inclined to agree with the others here. I was expecting to see the original 30 recipes with your proprietary rum categories, and that was valuable info for me to have. I missed this blog post and didn’t realize the original recipes weren’t there, and I don’t feel confident enough to be able to apply your categories to the recipes you’ve linked in this thread.
For the record, I’m not dissatisfied with the book at all. It’s excellent regardless and I am grateful to have it. But I would really love if you could host those recipes on your own site somewhere, or would authorize someone with one of the older editions to post those recipes somewhere for people like me to view.
Thank you for putting this all together. It’s an incredible resource and I don’t want to give the impression that I regret buying the book. I certainly don’t. It’s very much worth the purchase. I just wish those recipes were available somewhere.
Also, a sidenote, but in my printing, the “I” section of the index shows “H” words. Not sure if this is a common issue or not. I don’t mind it, but I wanted to mention it in case it’s affecting many/every other copy, and you are able to correct it for future prints.
Great catch with the ‘H’ in the index. No idea how that slipped by. Wow! Will fix in subsequent printings. Thank you!
Regarding the swap out of recipes, I completely understand your point of view. It was not a decision we took lightly. However, in addition to the desire to bring more new recipes to our readers, there were behind-the-scenes considerations that we had to take into account. We thought long and hard about the decision, and made the best of several imperfect choices.
For anybody looking for the “Classic 30” recipes, here is a page with links to each of them.
https://cocktailwonk.com/minimalist-tiki-classic-30-recipes
Have you got round to the e book for the new added recipes.
We did! I simply forgot to update this post with the info.
Here’s a link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Tiki-Vanguard-Modern-Thirty-Minimalist-ebook/dp/B0964DRQVF/ref=sr_1_1