TIKI ROAD TRIPS AND FLAMING COCKTAILS
by Jill Marie Landis
According to Wikipedia (and we all know how reliable Wikipedia is!) the tortured artist is both a stock character and a real-life stereotype. Artists who suffer for their work often succumb to self-mutilation, a high rate of suicide, hours of therapy and/or gallons of Ben and Jerry’s.
I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a tortured artist, but I will go to just about any length in the name of research. When I wrote western historical romances, I rode horses and rounded up cattle. I watered down pigs. I’ve visited so many historical sites and museums that my husband now punches the car accelerator as we approach any building or rock that might be sporting an historical marker.
Since I began writing The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series for Belle Books, I’ve gone overboard doing research. I’ve devoted countless hours to paging through Pintrest, pinning photos with the subject heading “Tiki.” I’ve shopped eBay for tiki mugs to add to my collection. I’ve spent many a night in the local watering hole here on Kauai writing notes on cocktail napkins and taste testing umbrella drinks. An author’s life is one of sacrifice. Believe me, I’ll go to any length to get things right on the page.
So, in the name of research, I’ve visited Tiki Bars on Kauai and on every other Hawaiian Island. When we’re on the mainland (you know it as the continental US), I refer to my handy dandy “Tiki Road Trip, A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America” by James Teitelbaum. I’ve been in tiki bars in some of the most unlikely, out of the way places in the world and lived to tell about it.
I’ll have to admit my husband and our dinner guests were surprised on evening when I walked into the kitchen armed with a long handled gas lighter and a fire extinquisher. I explained I’d decided to create a recipe to include in TOO HOT FOUR HULA, Book 4, the latest of the Tiki Goddess Mysteries and I needed assistance.
I handed my friend and fellow author, Stella Cameron, a fire extinguisher. As I recall, I said something like, “Stand back Stella, and if I blow myself up, use that thing!”
Stella laughed until I started lining up the ingredients which included chocolate candy kisses and three kinds of liquor, one of which was a bottle of 151 Proof rum, the liquor most mixologists recommended for igniting a flaming cocktail.
That night “The Flaming Manic Monkey” cocktail was born. The drink was inspired by a scene in TOO HOT FOR HULA when Uncle Louie relates a trek to the Amazon in search of the legendary Amethyst Monkey Skull.
Thankfully, Stella didn’t have to use the extinguisher after all because we later noticed that warranty on the thing expired ten years ago!
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Don’t forget to grab Jill Marie Landis’s newest release
– TOO HOT FOUR HULA –
out today!!
Just click the link above!
And make sure you grab the other fabulous books in the Tiki Goddess Series! Just click the links below!
