I have to say thisâa public service announcement, if you will: There is a difference between tiki drinks and cocktails that are merely tropical. Pina coladas (invented in Puerto Rico), mojitos and daiquiris (a Cuban contribution) are in the tropical camp, with balanced elements of sweetness, acidity, and booze. Tiki concoctions, however, can have a laundry list of ingredientsâa few rums, plus liqueurs, and some heady sweet-sour-spice amalgamation. They are potent potables, that, when done right, hit the spot.
All that preamble to say, Swizzle hits the spot. In Lower Greenville, the newish tiki bar brings back a bygone form of boozing. (Read about it in our July issue of D.) The dĂ©cor? Unabashedly kitsch. The cocktails? Pleasantly strong. Swizzle fills a tiki-shaped void that Trader Vicâs left when it closed more than a decade ago. With so many bars that are designed to be Instagram-worthy first, Swizzleâvirtually windowless, dimly lit save for the soft glow of bamboo lanternsâis not, I would say, a selfie hotspot. And good! Itâs about drinking rums and juices from a pineapple through a straw with an umbrella.
Tiki is fun, after all. Tiki is alluring. Tiki is, well, an illusion.
According to cocktail historian, Jeff âBeachbumâ Berry, the South Pacificâthemed cocktails didnât hail from the island nations of that region. Rather, they have origins in Caribbean drinking culture. The Mai Tai was born at the original Trader Vicâs in Oakland, California not on the beach in Hawaiâi! It was a dream of island life served up with a dash of cinnamon and a pineapple wedge.
âThe subsuming of anything with a hint of rum and fruit under the category of tiki is a misappropriation,â writes Alicia Kennedy for Eater, âthat has persisted precisely because of tikiâs original sin: What gave birth to it was a far-reaching act of cultural pillage, one that swiped broadly and unabashedly from Caribbean drinking traditions, then forced them into a pastiche molded by Polynesian aesthetics, all for U.S. consumers.â
The escapism that tiki provides is both entertaining and cringe-worthy. Which feels aptly American. In response to tikiâs fraught originsâirreverently borrowing from other culturesâSwizzle fundraises for nonprofits such as the Jamaica-based Every Mikkle Foundation for children (Jamaica being a prolific rum producer, a remnant from its history with an economy based on labor from enslaved people).
As someone whose parents hail from Hawaiâi and Puerto Ricoâtwo formerly independent island nations that, to many, are mere vacation spotsâtiki has a likewise fraught place in my heart. Who am I, then, Iâve wondered in the past, if not some tropical manifestation in flesh and blood? (No, I donât sound like an appealing libation, not at all.)
Whereas tiki is perhaps partly an escape to somewhere tropic, my existence is evidence that people had left from paradise. Maybe thatâs why the marriage of rum and fruit taste of home, in a distant way. Swizzle, by that logic then, is not my escape but my twisted arrival.
