Review: Tropical breezes and tiki reimagined at the Yachtsman

Cancun, Senior Week, 2002. I was 18, legally trashed under the Rio Grande, and making bad decisions involving frozen drinks at a hotel pool bar. Thinking back now on that sticky, blue Curacao-drenched blur of a week makes my stomach recoil.

I'm old, I guess. I grew up, learned how to drink like an adult, graduated from vodka — my high school AIM screenname was Ketel-N-Tonic, really — to small-batch gin, cultivated an appreciation for amari and taught myself to tolerate and eventually love bourbon through lots and lots of practice. All very Serious Drinking Stuff. Problem is, while this is all very sophisticated and interesting, it's not always fun. Frozen drinks are fun, benders in the tropics are fun and in Fishtown, Tommy Up's new Yachtsman — Philly's only tiki bar — is fun.

Outside, tiki torches flicker, and painted waves crest across the curved stone front of the bar in frothy, storm-tossed peaks. Inside, under a green, pressed-tin ceiling, are a pan-Pacific riot of artifacts — Olmec heads, surfboards, mermaids and life preservers. "Kokomo" is the unofficial theme song. It's kitschy and silly, but that shouldn't take away from the well-done space, a little slice of paradise on Frankford Avenue. At the very least, Yachtsman is something new for the millennial generation; Philly proper has not had a tiki bar since Pub Tiki on Walnut Street closed in 1977.

Making cocktails has been elevated to such high art, at times they can elicit a why-so-serious backlash, but with Yachtsman's menu of high-octane punches, sneaky frappes and colorful rum coolers, Phoebe Esmon and Christian Gaal have managed to weave together drinks that feel joyful as well as thoughtful. Like the Bird of Paradise, a frothy cross between a Clover Club and a Ramos gin fizz with a subtle orange blossom perfume, or the grass-green Missionary's Downfall, a frosty, refreshing rum, peach-and-pineapple situation whose color comes from a jungle of blended-in fresh mint. The velvety Tree Frog, a Don Q banana daiquiri mix with an undercurrent of galangal, allspice and star anise, is flat-out delicious; I want to make it a part of my daily breakfast routine.

The potent Pele's Embrace, with its double dose of rums and cherry-bark bitters, feels like the most bartender-y drink on the menu, and following a Tree Frog, came across overly alcoholic. A decade of practice, undone by one banana daiquiri. 

YACHTSMAN | 1444 Frankford Ave., 267-251-3234, yachtsmanbar.com. Mon.-Fri., 6 p.m.-1 a.m.; Sat.-Sun., noon-2 a.m. Cocktails, $8-$15.