Bartender Brian Miller calls himself a pirate, and he looks like one too, but he's not sword-fighting for booty on a deserted island. For years, he's been crusading for Tiki cocktails.
It's not an easy fight. In recent years, tropical cocktails fell out of fashion, with city Tiki bars like Lani Kai and Painkiller closing. Even Hawaiian mainstays like La Mariana in Oahu often seem to be on the brink of sinking.
"Tiki has so many knives in its back," says Miller, the head bartender at downtown's exclusive, 12-seat ZZ's Clam Bar and a fan of the tropical-drink tradition for years. "People say it's all sweet, it's all sugary, the drinks aren't balanced, when actually it's quite the opposite. These are really complex drinks; you can taste all of the ingredients. I've made Tiki drinks with gin, tequila, sake, Jagermeister and white whiskey."
Now, Tiki is making a comeback, with top restaurants across the country adding tropical drinks to their menus, and Miller is the man to thank for the proliferation of Painkillers and Rum Runners.
His Tiki torch was ignited a decade ago when he took a trip to Hawaii, had some mediocre Mai Tais and realized he could do better. He seriously studied all the drinks created by Don the Beachcomber, the Southern California bar that invented Tiki cocktails in the 1930s, and, in 2011, started hosting a Tiki Monday at bars around the city. Now he's looking to open a beachy bar of his own.
The Montego Bay, a spicy and boozy drink.Photo: Gabi Porter
Miller was also a big influence on Prime Meats' bartender Garret Richard, who recently a started a monthly Tiki Takeover party
"I was really inspired," Richard says. "Tiki wasn't treated by Brian like Jazz at Lincoln Center. It wasn't preserved in amber. It was allowed to grow and change. Brian wants to do new things with Tiki."
At ZZ's, Miller slings upscale Tiki creations like the Almond, a take on a Mai Tai, made with three kinds of rum, and the Pineapple, a gin, house limoncello and chamomile concoction served in a brass pineapple. But he says his most memorable Tiki moment behind the bar happened years ago.
He was working at Death & Co. when a friend, Tiki expert Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, came in. Berry had a proper Zombie cocktail, kept drinking and left the bar wondering where he even was. Which was the whole point.
"Tiki is about escape," says Miller. "It's about exotic locales."
The Flaming Zombie cocktail.Photo: Gabi Porter
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