When most people think of Northern California, they think of San Francisco. The Bay Area might be north of Los Angeles but it’s not the northern most point of California. If you travel a couple more hours north on I-5 you come into actual Northern California. This is where you will find The Labyrinth of Doctor Box! Ben and Audrey moved up to Fortuna (Humboldt County) and realized that there are no signs of tiki anywhere so took matters into their own hands and built their own.
I discovered The Labyrinth of Doctor Box which is Ben and Audrey’s tiki show on YouTube and I loved what I saw. So far, they have episodes discussing how different Orgeat syrups can affect the taste of a Mai Tai and the importance of your home tiki bar having a backstory. Great stuff! Speaking of backstories, here the backstory of The Labyrinth of Doctor Box…
What is the tiki scene like where you live?
Ben– In our house it’s great! But honestly, if you’re out in public there is almost no sign of anything at all Tiki related. In Eureka, we do have a hair salon called the “Tangled Tiki” which even has décor set up inside, but there are no tiki bars in all of Humboldt County. A few years ago, a restaurant called “The Banana Hut” closed, which had been open for many years. They had some pretty awesome (and authentic) Polynesian décor, as well as incredible Korean beef dishes. It was nice being able to order tiki drinks there too, though they weren’t in our opinion on par with the more “serious” tiki bars (though I have heard their Mai-Tai was delicious, and sadly I don’t remember having ordered one.) One huge plus is that Humboldt County is the home of Surfside Sips… the place to buy tiki straws. Also, just this past weekend actually, we discovered the Big Fun Shirt Company based out of Eureka… they make the highest quality Hawaiian/tiki shirts I’ve seen, and they’re local! Super nice folks too.
I’ve asked longtime locals if they ever remember a tiki bar being here in Humboldt, and to their knowledge there never has been one. To get to a public tiki bar from Humboldt county you have to drive several hours at least.
What brought you into the tiki lifestyle and how long has it been part of your life?
Ben For both me and my wife, the seeds started with trips to Disneyland, and I’m sure part of it was also movies that were set in a tropical paradise (Swiss Family Robinson comes to mind). But the only thing we knew about “tiki” was pretty much tiki torches, or “Tiki” parties. By 2016ish me and Audrey’s liquor cabinet was getting pretty full and starting to overflow. We made a good old fashioned or other classic cocktail, but tiki was still to be discovered, until later that year, when we first set foot into Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco – game changer. The drinks were delicious and intriguing, and the décor was off the charts. And then the Jungle Bird opened in Sacramento (part of the natural expansion of the tiki revival began by places like Smuggler’s Cove). At the Jungle Bird, we fell in love with Painkillers, Bourbicane’s and Spooky Lagoon’s. Audrey can identify our first visit to Smuggler’s Cove as her first major inspiration. For me, my biggest inspiration came a little later, during a visit to the Kon-Tiki in Oakland. The Kon-Tiki grog was just… incredible. It tasted like an old vintage cocktail that had been waiting decades to be enjoyed. It had such an intriguing flavor profile that I was mystified by. What was the flavor? Later I found out about funky Jamaican rums used in tiki drinks, which in the case of the Kon-Tiki grog was Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Black. Incredible stuff. That was my personal aha moment! I knew I had to track down that flavor and dive deeper into exotic cocktails.
Can you give a little history of how it all came together?
Ben– Our overflowing liquor cabinet, combined with the overflowing living room shelves full of tiki mugs and growing delight in replicating tiki drinks at home was what prompted us to build our own home bar. What kind of bar was easy – it would absolutely be a tiki bar… no question! We had a small house in Sacramento at the time and decided to build the bar in our unused kitchen nook. I had already built a portable wooden bar for parties and such and utilized that as the actual bar itself. The wall coverings, “roof” and shelves were all built rapidly – partially due to excitement to get the project completed, and also because it really was a small space to fill. Some decorations and a little lighting, and our bar was completed within a few weeks! We finally had a place to put all our tiki mugs and all our spirits.
Our original Sacramento home tiki bar:
We eventually moved up to Fortuna (Humbolt County), and bought a house that happened to have a perfect space for a far grander version of our bar. And so, began our new home tiki bar project, which took over a year to complete. This bar was a much more involved project, incorporating not only the bar itself (this time with two full stations & plumbing), but an entire jungle surrounding it – truly making you feel as if you’re outside on some exotic island. There is also a hand-built waterfall, full-sized tree and a lot more effects and some pretty time-consuming details that we never attempted during our first bar build. Our tiki bar 2.0 was well worth the time and effort, and it’s our favorite place to be!
Our newer home tiki bar in Fortuna:
Any story behind the name of your bar?
Ben– I started brainstorming words to begin with… just anything that sounded like it related to a tiki bar in any way. A thought popped into my head about a maze. I thought it would be cool to have a maze be a part of our bar’s story, but didn’t love the word maze. A thesaurus presented the word labyrinth, and I loved it. From there I had to come up with a story as to why a labyrinth was on an island. Perhaps a shipwreck resulted in a lone survivor that built a labyrinth on the island… but then why did he build a labyrinth? I just kept answering questions that naturally came up as the story progressed. Until then the only dogs we ever had were boxers, and I really did use that fact as a creative source for a lot of names and facts surrounding our story… for example the ship’s doctor that survived the shipwreck is named Doctor Box (boxer). Several of the characters in our backstory are named after dogs that either we or our family and friends owned (Stella, Watson, Pinks, Coco, etc.) And so, after building out the basic premise of the story, the resulting name of “The Labyrinth of Doctor Box” was born. I do think the way it’s worded was inspired by other bars with lengthier, unique names like The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town, a speakeasy in England we visited once.
How far have you driven to buy something tiki that you saw online?
Ben– Being so remote up here on the Northern California coast, flying is usually the way to go. The furthest we’ve flown where we knew we wanted something specific, was Chicago. A trip to Three Dots and a Dash resulted in some fun acquisitions – a few tiki mugs we had wanted to get our hands on.
We have driven from up here down to San Francisco quite a few times, including a trip to Trader Vic’s during one of their open market events, where we bought a super cool Tiki Bob wall shelf, that now enjoys a central spot in our bar. Trader Vic’s is about 4 ½ hours away from our house.
What is your favorite Tiki drink and what is your favorite Tiki bar?
Ben– My favorite tiki drink is the one that’s in my hand! But if I was forced to choose, “Mai-Tai” would probably escape my lips. But then later I may say “Halekulani” or “Zombie”. That’s a tough one. The thing about the Mai-Tai is that the balance cannot be more perfect. There is no single flavor that overpowers another, and the whole marriage of ingredients just presents one of the most heavenly flavors. It’s just delicious. Oftentimes tiki drinks can carry a similar profile to one another, yet nothing else really tastes like a genuine Mai-Tai. It’s one of the more unique flavors among exotic cocktails.
Audrey agrees that the Mai-Tai is pretty much the perfect cocktail, and if she had to choose, she would likely name it as her favorite tiki drink too. Like she says, it’s not a drink you can really make a riff on… it’s already so well balanced that as soon as you try to change it up it’s just never as good as the original. It’s best left the way it is, to enjoy in all its glory! An honorable mention of hers is Smuggler’s Cove’s Rum Barrel, which is one of her very favorites (mine too), although sometimes it comes across as too sweet…
Actually, she has noticed a pattern that many times me and her order the same drink, mine will be absolutely divine and hers will be too sweet. I do believe her suspicions are correct that a bartender will sometimes sweeten the drinks for the ladies instead of sticking 100% to the recipe. This has even been the case at Trader Vic’s when we order Mai-Tai’s… both her and her mom’s were sweeter than me and my father-in-law’s. Again, if the recipe is followed correctly, it’s perfect… so it should be left alone.
Just like my favorite tiki drink, I can debate in my mind all day what my favorite Tiki bar is. So many have either the best décor, drinks, atmosphere, special effects or architectural design. But I think the most memorable experiences are what is most important, and my fondest memory is at the Tiki-Ti in Southern California. It was there that me and Audrey sat at the bar and discovered who was behind it while we were sipping our drinks. Mike is such a super nice guy, and discovering that he helped his father build the Tiki-Ti back in the 1960’s, and that his father was one of the very first tiki bartenders in history, who worked for Donn the Beachcomber? I had never felt closer to the heart of tiki than I did that late Thursday night.
Audrey’s favorite Tiki Bar continues to be the Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco. From the very beginning of our tiki journey, it was an incredible experience, and it continues to be so each and every time we visit. It’s especially fun when we can score a few seats at the bar on the main floor, sitting within one of the most influential tiki establishments in modern history, and chatting with the friendly bartenders and long-time patrons. Smuggler’s Cove really did help spearhead the tiki revival, and Audrey likes their drinks the best!
Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?
Ben– Dark lighting. I’ve been to too many tiki bars that are brightly lit and it just ruins the whole vibe.
Appropriate music. There are different ways you can go with your playlist, from exotica to Hawaiian to tribal percussion, or a mix of everything.
I really like the freaky tiki vibe of throwing a little dark jazz into the playlist to mix things up a bit too. Décor goes without saying really. Whatever your budget and abilities allow. It doesn’t need to be over the top, but it should be believable.
I’d say those are the essentials. There’s a whole lot of other things that can really put a tiki bar on the map though… sound effects, a strong back story and water features to name a few.
What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?
Ben– We want to share our bar with our YouTube audience, but more specifically others that live in Humboldt County. Our goal is to use our home bar to spread awareness of what tiki is and how delicious it can be! Since there is such a shortage of exotic cocktails up this way, many locals have never had the privilege of enjoying one! Perhaps one day we will finally stir up enough excitement for it in Humboldt County to inspire the opening of a public tiki bar, so that everyone here can enjoy the delights and magical escapism of tiki. On a personal level, we plan on continuing to enjoy the Labyrinth of Doctor Box as much as often as possible… it’s an incredible way to spend a Friday evening amongst the sounds of birds flying overhead and the broadcasts of local island announcements over the radio.
Anything else you would like to add?
Ben– I think tiki will be something that me and Audrey will both cherish throughout our whole life. We hope that generations to come continue to enjoy these drinks. We also hope to inspire other like-minded people who have a desire to escape in their own homes, to go ahead and build the tiki bar of their dreams… it can be done! Why not build your own paradise? The rewards are well worth any effort. Many people do it, and it just takes some planning and motivation. It’s often said to us that our bar feels like it’s not in a house but should be in Disneyland or somewhere much more public – it seems surreal that you step out of an ordinary house and are instantly in another time and place. But that’s what Tiki is all about really – escape… not only through the flavors but through the bar itself.
Check out Audrey and Ben’s tiki show The Labyrinth of Doctor Box on YouTube