Exotic Cocktails (versus Tiki)
The terminology Forbidden Altar uses for the drinks themselves. Tiki is reserved for talking about the historical tradition, the founding bartenders, and Polynesian Pop as an aesthetic movement. The category itself is exotic cocktails.
The cocktail category most Americans think of as tiki—rum-forward, citrus-bright, tropical—has a terminology problem. The word tiki refers to sacred Polynesian carved figures of ancestors and gods. Applying it to a twentieth-century American cocktail tradition strips that meaning and propagates a flattening of Polynesian culture that the modern revival has been increasingly uncomfortable with.
Smuggler’s Cove (Martin and Rebecca Cate) and Latitude 29 (Jeff Berry)—two of the modern revival’s most respected bars—have both moved away from tiki as the default category name. Sven Kirsten’s preferred term for the aesthetic is Polynesian Pop, which carries the cultural-history baggage explicitly.
Forbidden Altar’s editorial position: exotic cocktails is the right name for the drinks. Tiki is reserved for talking about the specific historical tradition—the era from Donn Beach’s 1934 founding through roughly 1970, the named bartenders who built it, and the modern Revival that rebuilt it. Tiki is appropriate on People pages, in History essays, and in the category labels we use (the Canon, Late Era, Revival, etc.).
When in doubt: the drinks are exotic cocktails; the tradition is tiki.
This isn’t a unique position. It’s the modern revival’s working consensus. Naming the choice on this page lets visitors who care about the cultural conversation see it clearly; visitors who don’t care can keep ordering Mai Tais.