Welcome to the Crowdsourcing Mornings segment! Every weekday morning, Geek Alabama talks about and features one crowdsourcing project from crowdsourcing sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others. The hope with Crowdsourcing Mornings is to feature and help a project be successful and reach its fundraising goal. Please enjoy today’s featured project!
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You may have noticed it… a proliferation of rums at your local watering hole, an infusion of tropical fruit onto cocktail menus, and the creation of clandestine oases in your neighbors’ garages. It’s undeniable: Tiki is having a resurgence. Like so many of you, we noticed our cultural turn toward the tropical and wanted to explore and document this renaissance. Thus, Talking Tiki was born.
Our approach was to go to the source: the Tiki-lovers, new and old, who are bringing this lifestyle, cocktail, and bar genre back to life. We want the film to feel like a good conversation with friends over a delicious and bright drink (or two): deep and unrushed, with a lot of laughter. We want to get to the heart of what drives people en masse to Tiki in 2023. Why do we need this escape, and what does it look like when traditional Tiki intersects with other American cultural touchstones?
We started by interviewing the modern godfathers of Tiki: Beachbum Berry (of Latitude 29 in New Orleans) and Sven Kirsten (author of too many Tiki books to count). We interviewed Mike Buhen Sr. about the 45 years he’s been behind the bar at Tiki-Ti and Marie King about what makes a tropical drink so damn delicious.
But we didn’t stop there – because there’s a whole new cadre of bar owners, mixologists, artists, and regular folk making Tiki culture, tropical drinks, and Polynesian pop their own thing. These are the women, the people of color, and the new faces to Tiki. We’ve been working on Talking Tiki for a year now and have been utterly amazed by the way human ingenuity and creativity make this genre so fun. These are the stories we want to share with you.
As of November 30th, this project has raised $4,200 of their $50,000 goal. This project has 21 days left to raise the $50,000 or it will not be funded. For a pledge of $10, you will get your name in the credits. For a pledge of $25, you will get a private link to the film. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asali/talking-tiki?
