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Tiki Talk with Ben Willis: Water Escapism and Bulu Cocktails · Mega Rock On Demand

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday afternoon, and that means it's time to light the torches once again for Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Willis with you.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you're talking about an escapist island paradise, what comes to mind but lounging on a beach in the evening, listening to the waves of the ocean roll against the sand?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Water is a big component in a lot of ways when you consider tiki, tiki decoration, tiki music even.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So much of the old school exotica playlist was uh bookended by the sound of waves.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, Webley Edwards' Hawaii Calls Radio Show began and ended with the sound of the waves on the beach at Waikiki.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So water in its various forms, including cocktails, plays a big part in tiki escapism.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that includes water features, indoor or outdoor fountains, ponds, waterfalls, what have you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some way that you can incorporate water into your tiki space all the better.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: One, the sound itself is soothing.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's be honest.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sound of a trickling waterfall or a little fountain in a pond is just adds a little bit of extra flair to wherever you're relaxing on an evening.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can even talk about this at scale.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Most, if not all, of the great big classic tiki restaurants that still exist and used to exist incorporate some kind of water feature, either on their grounds or inside.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Most famously, the Tonga Room in San Francisco.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the entire restaurant was built around the basement swimming pool of the hotel where they installed the restaurant.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And to this day, if you go to the Tonga Room on cue, every once in a while, they will imitate a thunderstorm with actual rainfall falling directly into the pool in the center of the room.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get much better than that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see on our Facebook page at Mega Rock PA, we got some ideas, so to speak.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite tiki water motifs is that of the Lava Rock Waterfall, which, if you're really ambitious, would make a great summer project for your tiki space.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for sipping after taking a break, working on your next water feature, it doesn't get much better than a classic pineapple drink, and I'm talking about being served in an actual pineapple, the Boulou cocktail.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're gonna start by taking an entire pineapple, chop off the top, gut the inside of the pineapple, pull out the innards.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a pineapple core, I highly suggest you get one.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're very useful if you intend to be using pineapples on a regular basis.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna take a few small chunks of that fresh pineapple that you just cored, throw them into a blender, along with two and a half ounces of unsweetened pineapple juice, 1 12 ounce of fresh lime juice, 1 14 ounce of honey mix syrup, this is a 50-50 mix of honey and water, and you're gonna blend that without ice until everything is liquefied, including the pineapple chunks.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Take your hollowed-out pineapple, fill that with crushed ice, pour your juice mix over the ice, and to that we're going to add our rums.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have four of them in this case: 3 ounce of dark Jamaican rum, 3-4 ounce of over-proof Demorara rum.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Lemonheart is the preferred for this mixture, 1 12 ounces of regular proof Demorara rum, and 1 12 ounces of gold Puerto Rican rum.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to add to that 1 1 ⁇ 2 ounce of club soda, stir until well-chilled and incorporated, serve with a very large straw, and there you go, it's the Bulu, perfect for sipping in your tiki oasis.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So until we meet on another island out there somewhere, this is Ben Willis saying aloha.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to leave you with an absolutely classic surf track straight from 1963.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Lively Ones and Surf Rider on Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.