One cannot imagine what the modern Tiki revival would be like without Otto von Stroheim. A much less festive place, that’s for sure. Since 2001, the Los Angeles native has produced, along with his wife Baby Doe, the first and largest Tiki event of its kind in the world, Tiki Oasis in San Diego. Before that, he was among a small group of devotees that is credited with igniting interest in mid-century Polynesian culture that continues to thrive and grow more than 25 years later.
Tiki Oasis: Aug. 14-17, 2014, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Bali Hai restaurant in San Diego. Includes live music and entertainment, symposiums, vendors, car show, and more. Go to TikiOasis.com or Facebook for more info.
In addition to Tiki Oasis, Otto was the creator of several influential touchstones in Tiki’s modern history, including Tiki News magazine, and a series of curated art exhibits and books (Tiki Art Now). Otto can also be found at Forbidden Island in Alameda doing a regular monthly DJ gig.
I cornered Otto at The Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale during Miami Rum Renaissance Festival in April and asked him five burning questions:
1. You’ve been at ground zero of the Tiki revival since the very beginning. What do you miss about the early days, and what’s better now?
Hurricane Hayward interviews Otto von Stroheim at The Mai-Kai in April 2014. (Photo by Susan Hayward)
Back then, there were fewer eyes watching you, less pressure, less people to answer to. And, you know, there was less knowledge so if you got something wrong or it was yet to be proven, or if you got a fact wrong, or if you told a story and left out a fact, or if you had a recipe and didn’t get the ingredients right, nobody was there to say whether that was right or wrong. You were moving the peg forward either way. Now there’s so much knowledge and so many people involved, and the knowledge can be dispersed very quickly, if you make a statement or you’re interviewed in a newspaper or a blog, or you write a book or post something or publish something, there’s going to be somebody out there who knows a little more, or knows that you left something out, and they’re going to call you on it. It’s kind of funny because in the old days, people were like, “Oh, that’s great, cool. The recipe for the Mai Tai. Awesome. You know that, alright.” It was a little more relaxed in that way. A little bit less pressure, which would allow you to kind of have more fun in a way.
The Demerara Float was featured on a special Mai-Kai menu during The Hukilau in June 2026. (Photo by Hurricane Hayward)
This descendant of Don the Beachcomber’s 1930s-era Demerara Dry Float disappeared from the menu in the late 1980s. More than three decades later, it made multiple special appearances starting with The Hukilau 2013. It was last seen on a special menu in 2017, three years before the October 2020 roof collapse that closed the restaurant until 2024.
This new excitement was also fueled by a popular YouTube show and the unexpected revival of the cocktail’s classic glassware. We’d also like to thank Matt “Spike” Marble for rekindling interest in the Demerara Dry Float (and Demerara Float) by featuring our previous tribute recipe on Tiki Cocktails With Spike just days after The Hukilau. Follow this link or watch below in the postscript.
Marble also revealed a new glass from Stephens Drinkware that replicates the design of the cocktail’s original vessel, used by both Don the Beachcomber and the Mai-Kai. The iconic Streamline Tumbler from the Seneca Glass Co. is nearly impossible to find today. The new versions are handcrafted to order, so be sure to pick one up via Stephensdrinkware.com while they’re available.
Of the 43 cocktails on the Mai-Kai’s inaugural 1956-1957 menu, 41 can be traced back to classics created by Donn Beach at his groundbreaking Polynesian restaurants in the 1930s and ’40s. Many key staff that opened the Mai-Kai with owners Bob and Jack Thornton, including acclaimed mixologist Mariano Licudine, came from the Don the Beachcomber location in Chicago.
Licudine, who had worked for Beach since 1939, had access to the Tiki cocktail pioneer’s secret recipes. Manager Bob Van Dorpe, who was the purchasing agent in Chicago, knew how to procure the proprietary syrups and unique glassware that made these drinks special. The Streamline Tumbler was one of these.
A reproduction of the Demerara Dry Float glass by Stephens Drinkware. It perfectly replicates the glassware used by the Mai-Kai, shown in a 1957 menu. (Photos: Stephensdrinkware.com and The Atomic Grog)
Recipes were changed slightly, and many names changed, but the cocktails and their presentation remained a time capsule to another era. Licudine retired in 1979, but his influence is still being felt. Many of his recipes remain secret with Starr maintaining this integrity when he relaunched the bar program.
Of those 41 drinks from 1956, 24 are still on the Mai-Kai’s cocktail menu today. The others, including the Demerara Float, fell off the menu over the years and were once considered “lost cocktails.” But since most of them have been revived for special occasions over the past decade, we now simply call them “retired” in the hopes that they return for another encore.
A mid-century Don the Beachcomber menu (left) and the Mai-Kai’s opening menu from 1956-57 both feature the Demerara Float’s vintage glassware.
Our Mai-Kai cocktail guide, which is due for a major update in 2026, features ratings, reviews and recipes for nearly every classic drink that has appeared on a main Mai-Kai menu. There are some official recipes that have been published, but mainly we share our own “tribute recipes” that we hope come close to the look and taste of the versions served at the Mai-Kai.
We also like to connect the dots and feature an extensive collection of “ancestor recipes,” typically those Don the Beachcomber originals that inspired Licudine and the Mai-Kai. Thanks to author Jeff “Beachbum” Berry and his six seminal books and app, we’ve been able to post many of these former secret recipes.
The Mai-Kai is featured in Tim “Swanky” Glazner’s new book, Searching for Don the Beachcomber. Photos above include manager Bob Van Dorpe and mixologist Mariano Licudine. (Click for larger image)
The book features 36 cocktails that made their way to the Mai-Kai, including 25 on the current menu and 11 that are retired. Some are the same as recipes we’ve seen before in Berry’s books and elsewhere, but many are different and a few are brand new. Over time, we plan to incorporate all of these updates into the Mai-Kai Cocktail Guide.
What could be more comforting on a chilly winter night than some warm rum and spices with a big dollop of butter? The holiday season would not be complete without a traditional Hot Buttered Rum.
From The Mai-Kai’s 1956-57 menu.
Like the milk punch, Hot Buttered Rum is a seasonal classic that dates back to colonial times. According to the American Heritage Cookbook, the drink even “found its way into domestic politics.” Candidates would ply their constituents with it to influence their vote. If only today’s politicians would try this method instead of the usual dirty politics.
Drinks using the key ingredients – rum, butter and hot water – were documented during the early days of mixology in cocktail pioneer Jerry Thomas’ mid-19th century bar guides as Hot Rum and Hot Spiced Rum. The Mai-Kai’s version is not very different than the traditional Hot Buttered Rum and was no doubt influenced by Don the Beachcomber’s early Tiki classic.
Hot Buttered Rum and the lesser known Hot Rum Grog were staples on Donn Beach’s early menus. A menu from the 1940s includes this description of the Hot Buttered Rum: “Rums from the islands of Jamaican and Barbados. Mulled with cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, sweet butter and hot water. This will rekindle the fires in your heart.”
The Hot Buttered Rum recipe from the Aku-Aku restaurant in Las Vegas, as published in Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari.
By the 1950s, Donn’s copycats were experimenting with the traditional recipe, adding creme de cacao (Pub and Prow Hot Buttered Rum), along with maraschino liqueur and black tea (Volcano House Hot Buttered Rum). We can thank tropical cocktail historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry for these, which he published in Beachbum Berry Remixed (2010) and the Total Tiki app.
Mahalo to the Bum and his 10th anniversary edition of Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari in 2017, we have perhaps the most reverent Hot Buttered Rum recipe to Donn’s original (rum, honey butter mix, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon). Berry gleaned it from a 1969 issue of the Stardust Hotel’s in-house magazine, but those who follow Tiki history will know that the Aku-Aku restaurant, which operated from 1960 to 1980 in the iconic Las Vegas landmark, has a direct connection to Don the Beachcomber. Beach consulted on its creation and undoubtedly contributed his recipes to the cocktail menu. Sippin’ Safari is a must-read for many great stories about Donn and the Aku-Aku.
