The gateway into Tiki culture for many people is the Tiki mug. Some mugs are found used at an antique shop or acquired as a souvenir at a Tiki bar. They look cool and collectable. It’s art that you can drink out of! At the beginning, Tiki mugs were just that. Mugs were designed to look like Tiki statues and that’s about it. Fast-forward to present day: Tiki mugs can be designed as pretty much anything. Many different subcultures like rockabilly, punk, hot-rod, or even just a general interest in Mid-Century lead people into loving Tiki. Why not combine those subcultures with Tiki? Luckily someone has! If you go to Frankie’s Tiki Room in Las Vegas, you can drink out of Tiki mug that’s shaped like a slot machine!
One subculture that has been mixed with Tiki is horror. I’ve seen Tiki mugs that are crafted as zombies, skulls, shrunken heads, and even as Frankenstein’s monster. Horror In Clay is the master of the horror-Tiki mug. The mugs they create are so cool and intricate. Jonathan M. Chaffin started Horror In Clay and here is his story…
What brought you into the ‘Tiki lifestyle’ and how long has it been part of your life?
Jonathan- I’ve been into ’50s culture my whole life. I grew up watching Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, I Dream of Genie, I Love Lucy, and especially The Addams Family and The Munsters. That kind of provided a baseline of retro-love, monsters, Kustom Kulture, and hot-rods that grew organically into a love of Tiki. The groundwork was further laid by a love of theme restaurants like Hooters and the Vortex in Atlanta. What really got me going on Tiki, though, was an early date with my (now) wife, Allison. We were in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia State dorms, pondering a place to eat, and decided to try this place called Trader Vic’s we’d heard of. It happened to be a Tiki Torch night, or an anniversary, or some event, and along with great cocktails there were artists like Derek Yaniger and hula dancers. We went intending to get a drink or two and ended up with appetizers, a big dinner, banana fosters, and the whole deal. After that, Tiki became a running theme in our relationship. We had a Tiki wedding with wedding favors from Tiki Farm. We built out a home bar in our first apartment, and our obsession with Tiki has been getting stronger.
How did you get into making Tiki mugs?
Jonathan- I’ve pretty much always collected Tiki and horror. My wife and I even had an abortive attempt sculpting Moai mugs for fun once. (They were terrible and cracked and we couldn’t even mold them.) BUT when my daughter was born, I had a lot of free time on my hands late at night due to my work schedule. Because of that, I started trying to design a mug, coasters, and swizzles for my dreamed of home horror/Tiki bar. Those designs became the rewards for my first Kickstarter: the Horror In Clay Cthulhu Tiki mug…
In the course of designing the first one, I did some ancillary designs I didn’t use. Those became the Innsmouth Fogcutter mug. After that, with a lot of support from friends and an ever-increasing number of mug collectors, I just kept designing them.
Tell me about your business, Horror In Clay.
Jonathan- Horror In Clay makes fine horror-themed Tiki mugs, art, apparel, barware, bitters, and accessories. It represents a fair amount (although not 100%) of my creative output and free time. So, you’ll find Jonathan M. Chaffin designs and artwork that is not Horror In Clay, but generally it is done under that heading.
Horror In Clay Tiki mugs are conceived as part of an inter-related collection, like a fashion collection, that can be explored to create a narrative. The more pieces from the collection you have, the more you can glean about the underlying backstory of the collection. For example; our Cthulhu Tiki mug is part of the Pickman’s Cove collection. The rough outline of that collection is that the character from HP Lovecraft’s story “Pickman’s Model” had a version of the Cthulhu statue mentioned in the “Call of Cthulhu”. When he disappeared, all of his possessions, including a cursed camera and the sculpture of Cthulhu, were inherited by his nephew, who opened a bar called Pickman’s Cove (and met a horrific end…presumably.) The Gilman House collection based around the Innsmouth Fogcutter tells a Romeo and Juliette story with monsters, and so on. I also work hard to hide clues and hints in the mugs and supporting documentation themselves, for extra fun.
I started my career as a designer making and selling t-shirts in high school, so I love doing shirts and coasters and things in support of each mug. The story behind Horror Infused: Fiendishly Tropical Bitters is fun: I realized I was drinking a lot of Dark & Stormies out of my largest mug (the Innsmouth Fogcutter) and I like to put bitters in that cocktail, so I was going through a lot of Bittercube blackstrap molasses bitters (which I love). Since I like my Dark & Stormies specifically with Blenheim Extra Hot ginger beer, I worked with Bittercube to develop a bitters SPECIFICALLY for how I like my version of the classic cocktail (Which is very dark and heavy on the storm. I have another flavour profile of Horror Infused Bitters I keep meaning to produce, but thus far, more mugs have taken the lead.
What is your favorite horror movie?
Jonathan- Brutal, BRUTAL question. I have so many it’s almost easier to go by category, so I’ll have to narrow it down. I love the Halloween movies; H2O is probably my favorite of them because you have Jamie Lee Curtis as an adult fighting her brother, and you have elements that tie together all the previous films. I also love the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, particularly Dream Warriors. Hellraiser and the canon of Pinhead, the Cenobites, and the puzzle boxes ties deeply into my love of meta-narrative. I’m terrified by suspenseful movies with a twist, like Skeleton Key. If I had to pick a single, solitary horror movie to be the only one I ever get to watch again, though, it would have to be Return of the Living Dead. The horror comedy blend, the ’80s nostalgia and soundtrack, the extra-viscous zombies, and the action throughout always makes me happy.
What is your favorite Tiki drink? Why?
Jonathan- Certainly I love many Tiki drinks, particularly those served in bowls and barrels (so you can build bridges with straws). That said, my single all time favorite has to be a tossup between the Barrel o’ Rum at the Mai Kai and the Suffering Bastard (with cucumber!) at Trader Vics Atlanta. In general, anything with a cinnamon/grapefruit/honey blend and profile had a high probability of me liking it.
What is your favorite Tiki bar?
Jonathan- Hands down, the Mai Kai restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. There is nothing like it in the world. It is an artifact of a bygone era deserving of historic preservation. You must go, if you are into Tiki. That is my favorite Tiki bar, but nipping RIGHT at its heels is Trader Vic’s Atlanta, that vintage beauty in the basement of the Hilton. One of the last Trader Vic’s in the US, hand overseen by the trader himself, and no list of awesome Tiki bars is complete without it. After that, the field gets a lot more competitive, but I have a special place in my heart for Tacoma Cabana in Washington State. Those cats really bring the BOOM.
What does the future hold for Horror In Clay?
Jonathan- More and better Tiki mug collections. I just finished a collection centered around Edgar Alan Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue“, so that collection is in production.
There is a mug that I just did to commemorate the 10th year of horror fiction podcasts from Pseudopod.org because I feel passionately about there being a paying market for short horror fiction…
I just started working on two new mugs for next year: one for a restaurant (as Jonathan M. Chaffin) and one as a full-blown Horror In Clay collection. Further, I’m hoping to reorder my Innsmouth Fogcutter (which has been out of stock for a few years) in a new glaze color sometime next year. ALSO, I will be speaking at CONJuration in Atlanta in a few weeks, and hope to participate in Anachrocon and DragonCon in 2017. Please check out the 2016 giftsets.
Your wife has her own business called Mugcrate, Care you talk about that?
Jonathan- From the beginning of Horror In Clay, my wife Allison has been instrumental in the logistics and helping get everything shipped and packed. She is also a fan of Tiki style and enjoys entertaining. She decided earlier this year that between her constantly searching for quality gifts to appeal to Tikiphiles (like me) and her substantial cocktail and appetizer chops that she would like to put together a curated Tiki experience in a box. It is important to Allison that each box go beyond the standard Party City Tiki tacky, so we reach out to event organizers and artists who love Tiki and try and put together a list of items grouped around a central theme to send out each quarter.
Since we have all the shipping apparatus in place and ship out Horror In Clay constantly, the quarterly spikes for MugCrate aren’t too bad. At present, boxes are planned out through about this time next year, but more subscriptions sell all the time. I know we’re particularly excited about the idea of getting to 500 or so subscriptions, because at that point we may be able to start tapping artists to design custom mugs for some of the MugCrates, which would be really exciting. The next MugCrate coming out is themed “Tsanta Claus is coming to town” and will ship in time for Christmas. MugCrate also has giftcards. If you are an artist or want to promote a Tiki event, you can get in touch with Allison at mugcrate@horrorinclay.com
Anything else you would like to add?
Jonathan- I enjoy your blog! Thank you to all the Tiki fans who love this stuff and keep Polynesian Pop alive. Thank you, too, to all the dedicated bartenders and cocktail establishments committed to serving Tiki drinks the right way: in a frosty sculpted ceramic mug. Cheers and Happy Halloween from Horror In Clay!
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