A lot can happen in a year …
Terra and Alex Fritch went from discovering what tiki is, to becoming members of the Rumbustion Society at Smuggler’s Cove, to building their own tiki bar on the patio behind their home. The name of their bar is Fred and Ginger’s Exotic Cocktail Bar and Lounge. Who are Fred and Ginger? Continue reading to find out!
What is the tiki scene like where you live?
Alex- I guess you could say we’re pretty lucky! The Bay Area Tiki community is large, diverse, and incredibly welcoming. In the short time we’ve been involved in the Tiki scene, we’ve met so many great people and even better, a few close friends. Even though we have no commercial tiki bars in South San Jose, we do have several about an hour drive north of us in the San Francisco Bay Area. Smugglers Cove, Trader Vic’s, Kon Tiki, Forbidden Island, Zombie Village, and Pagan Idol, just to name a few. We haven’t even been to all of them yet!!!
What brought you into the ‘Tiki lifestyle” and how long has it been part of your life?
Alex- Instead of dinner and a movie, Terra and I have always preferred cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. We thought it would be less expensive to put a bar in our house and bring back the days of having cocktail parties at home.
About a year ago we began installing a bar in our recently enclosed backyard patio. I stocked the bar with my favorite spirits, whiskey and gin, when my wife asked “where’s the rum?”. Her favorite drinks at the time were sweet and tropical which I hate. I thought, “we have both Bacardi’s, Captain Morgan’s, and Malibu, what else is there?”
We began collecting “real” rum, and I needed to find some rum cocktails that weren’t so sweet. I found that those drinks were called “Tiki” drinks from watching many YouTube videos. Just about every video referenced either Beach Bum Berry’s or the Smuggler’s Cove books. Realizing Smuggler’s Cove was also a bar only an hour drive away, we set off. On our first trip to “The Cove” we enjoyed some of the best cocktails we’ve ever had, engaged in friendly conversation, joined the Rumbustion Society, and fell in love with Tiki!
Can you give a little history of how it all came together?
Alex- Well, after that night at Smuggler’s Cove we decided our bar would become a tiki bar!
When we originally enclosed our patio, we used old fence boards from the neighborhood for the walls, which gave the patio an old barn/rustic shack look. We felt that aesthetic pushed us to decorate in the nautical style. We came up with a story for the bar to give ourselves a direction in decorating. The idea is, Fred and Ginger’s Exotic Cocktail Bar and Lounge was built on a tropical beach using materials from sailing ship wrecks, and decorated with artifacts washed up on the beach.
Any story behind the name of your bar?
Alex- It might seem confusing because my name is not Fred nor is my wife’s name Ginger!
While on vacation in Mexico we purchased two souvenir tropical birds perched in hoops to use as decorations in our bar. After we hung them up, my wife urged “We should name them”. I took a look at them hanging there next to each other and thought “How about Fred and Ginger?”. She loved it! We get a kick out of introducing them to our guests at every cocktail party!
What is your favorite Tiki drink?
Alex- I tend to just go for sipping rum straight, but my current favorite is the Jungle Bird. I tend to like drinks just outside of being balanced. To me, the perfectly balanced drinks are kind of boring. Anything slightly tart, bitter, spicy, or on the boozier side is what I gravitate toward.
Terra’s favorite is called Dr. Barca’s Fluffy Banana, named after its creator, Dane Barca of Smuggler’s Cove. This is a truly amazing cocktail, it uses a very interesting Brazilian Cachaça, Avua Amburana, which imparts a truly amazing unique flavor to this banana-coconut delight. If you’re ever in San Francisco, go to Smuggler’s Cove and have Dane make you one.
What is your favorite Tiki bar? Not including your own!
Alex- We have a soft spot for Smuggler’s Cove. It was our first Tiki experience. The cocktails are second to none, the staff is amazing, the decor is incredible, and we both belong to the rum club, but we are currently loving The Kon Tiki across the bay in Oakland. They have really good cocktails, a great selection of rum, a very friendly neighborhood bar vibe, and their food is AMAZING!
Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?
Alex- We think the key is escapism. You should feel like you’re stepping into a different world, leaving your day to day behind. No outside lights, no television, and no recognizable popular music.
What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?
Alex- We feel like we have a lot left to do. We’ve only been at this for about a year at this point and feel we still need a lot more decor items, maybe add some theatrics.
We just experienced our first tiki bar crawl, hosted by Sacramento Tiki Ohana, and were overwhelmed. What a great time! Truly amazing group in Sacramento. We would love to be a part of an event like that in our area.
Photos by Kevin Crossman and Alex Fritch