Tiki Time!

In the summer of 2000, I met my husband Tim in Dewey Beach,  Delaware.

A great place for young professionals to mingle, party, unwind from the week and get a great tan. 

We would arrive for the weekend,  park our cars and walk everywhere we wanted to go. Several of us would make sure to budget our vacation time accordingly so that we could take half days on Fridays and make sure to get down to Dewey in time for Friday Happy Hour at the Lighthouse – Taco Toss.  

Saturday would start with a three-mile run or 10 mile bike ride, followed by laying on the beach most of the day, waiting for the evening where we would go to Tiki Happy Hour.

The beach house Tim was in had a Tiki Bar in the back yard. Tim built the bar, which then earned him the nickname of Tiki Tim.  Each Saturday, the Tiki bar would be packed with 30-plus people laughing and having a great time.  Tim and one of our best friends, Chris, would work the bar making sure that everyone had enough tropical drinks to start the night.   The more we drank at the Tiki Bar, the less money we would spend out in the bars.  My favorite was the dirty banana or the golden shower (like a frozen lemonade).   On special nights, Tim would bring out the volcano that had some type of drink around the rim and the middle would be in flames.  Tropical music played throughout the night and included music from Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley, and various party mixes.  

These days, we live in the suburbs and continue to host Saturday night Tiki Hours making drinks for our neighbors to enjoy.  

This past weekend, the weather was beckoning for the set up of the Tiki Bar.  

Tim has an amazing collection of ceramic Tiki mugs from Tiki Farm, Hawaii, to Duffy’s Love Shack in St. Thomas.  The yard is lit with Tiki torches, solar powered Tiki statue lights, and umbrella lights that range from hula girls to tropical fish.  The Tiki bar is decorated with a bubbling palm tree, Tiki God statues, and lava lamps.  

The blender is an important element of each Tiki party as it ensures the frozen drinks are well blended.  We were lucky to get an amazing blender from Williams Sonoma for a wedding gift and just recently purchased a Ninja blender as a secondary blender.  During the summer, we don’t nearly have the crowd we had at the Tiki bar in Dewey, but come November when we have our Tiki Turkey Bowl party – that’s another story.

Yes, we work in the Tiki for the football/Tiki party the weekend before Thanksgiving.  It has been our tradition in the eight years we’ve lived in Maryland.  Football in the afternoon with a special appearance from the Baltimore Ravens mascot, Poe, followed by a Tiki party that goes well into the night.  A good majority of our Dewey Beach friends travel from Delaware,  D.C., Maryland, and New York make it down for the annual event.    

These days you can find Tiki in so many places to fit a variety of tastes.  They even came out with a Squeeki Tiki dog toy that our dog, Kona, loves.

I would have never guessed that Tiki would become so much a part of my life, but I’m happy I got the best Tiki out there  - Tiki Tim!