Tiki Mug

A Mug That Hides the Drink

Most glasses are chosen to show a drink. A tiki mug shows nothing: you see the garnish, the straw and the face on the side, and the drink only when you reach the bottom.

Tiki bars ran on secrecy before the mugs arrived. Donn Beach, who opened Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood in the 1930s, is said to have kept his recipes in code so his own staff could not copy them. An opaque mug suits that habit, but it came later.

The Mugs Came After the Bars

Donn Beach’s early menus showed drinks in glassware, in hollowed-out pineapples and in coconuts, not in carved mugs. The earliest known tiki mug is usually dated to 1949, made by Crown Lynn in New Zealand.

In the United States, mugs modelled on carved idols appeared in the late 1950s, and one of the first is often credited to Tiki Bob’s in San Francisco, opened in 1955. By the 1960s makers such as Otagiri were producing them in quantity for bars and for home.

Check the Glaze Before You Drink From One

Buy new mugs from a maker who states they are food-safe. Ceramics sold for food contact in the UK must meet limits on how much lead and cadmium can leach out of the glaze.

Older mugs are the risk. Some mid-century glazes contained lead or cadmium, and acidic liquids draw those metals out more readily; tiki drinks are full of lime and lemon. A collectable vintage mug belongs on a shelf, not at the table.

Avoid any mug with a bare, unglazed inside. Unglazed ceramic is porous, soaks up juice and syrup, and cannot be cleaned properly.

Sizes, and Which Drinks Fit

Most mugs hold somewhere between 350 and 500ml, and stand roughly 12 to 18cm tall and 8 to 10cm across, though shapes vary widely. Pour water in from a measuring jug before you plan a drink around one.

The smaller drinks fit anything. A Three Dots and a Dash finishes at about 150ml after shaking and a Scorpion at about 200ml. The big ones need the big mugs: a Fog Cutter at about 250ml and a Painkiller at about 280ml, poured over ice, want 450ml or more and overflow a 350ml mug.

Ceramic conducts heat about as readily as glass, so the thick walls do the insulating rather than the material. Chilling the mug in the fridge or freezer first helps a crushed-ice drink last. Never pour a hot drink into a frozen mug: the sudden change can crack it.

Common Questions