How a bootlegging schemer launched the tiki movement from his tiny Hollywood bar

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Alex Lamb and Max Well didn’t set out to make a documentary.Fans of tiki bars, their goal was a web series, one that looked at the colorfully decorative tropical bars in Southern California.

What they discovered, however, was an only-in-Hollywood tale that not only cut to the heart of the scene’s roots, but foretold the modern cocktail movement, changed tourism and spawned a subculture.Now available to rent or buy on most major streaming platforms, “The Donn of Tiki” looks at the life, much of it grounded in self-made myths, of Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, otherwise known as Donn Beach or Donn the Beachcomber.

A bootlegger, World War II veteran and nightlife impresario, Beach, as he legally changed his name to, was a sort-of cocktail-focused answer to Walt Disney.He was a pioneer of an industry who trafficked in experimentation, big ideas and, eventually, heavily thematic environments that centered the guest experience.

“Donn and Walt Disney, they’re both hosts,” Lamb says, noting that many have referred to him as the “Walt Disney of rum.” “They create this experience that people are going to come to and not just see, but they’re going to feel it and hear it,” Lamb says.“It’s for all their senses.

They’re very similar in that way.”“The Donn of Tiki,” first released in 2024, also portrays Beach as a bit of a schemer.Some of his bar inventions, for instance, were less grand thematic ideas and simply tricks to keep patrons indoors and ordering.

The filmmakers credit Beach with helping to commercialize the luau, now a staple of many a Hawaiian vacation, and bring his story to life via stop-motion and 2D animation, historical footage, and fresh interviews, including with his widow and some of those who worked for his latter-day establishments.Yet Lamb and Well are pri...