Try a tiki—a sweet, fruity blast from the past, updated for modern tastes

Tiki cocktails are a tasty mid-twentieth-century American classic, but their popularity suffered when syrupy drink mixes hit the scene. Now it’s time to welcome them back: Food blogger Nicole Weston and mixologist Robert Sharp have brought back the fresh taste of tiki drinks, banishing the artificial syrupy sweetness of mixes for fresh fruit juices, high-quality spirits, and homemade syrups. They offer a taste of the past with traditional recipes that honor the flavors of the Caribbean, South Pacific, and the Hawaiian Islands that first inspired the tiki cocktail. Including original recipes inspired by Asian and South American flavors, Tiki Drinks is a hybrid of the old and the new; the concept may be vintage but the drinks are fresh. Drinks include delicious updates of Jamaican Milk punch using fresh cream of coconut, Siren’s Elixir with fresh-squeezed lemon and guava juice, and a Hawaiian Queen Bee with locally sourced honey and garnished with juicy, fresh-cut pineapple. Of course, what’s a tiki drink book without a little Hawaiian lore and style? Tiki Drinks has that, and much more.