A tiki menu looks like fifty unrelated drinks with silly names. It isn't. Nearly every classic is the same four-slot structure with different things dropped into the slots, and once you can see the structure you stop needing recipes.
The four slots
Spirit. Usually two rums of different styles layered together, not one. That layering is what "tiki" actually means more than any single ingredient: a clean white rum for body and a funky pot-still or demerara rum for character, in the same glass.
Sour. Fresh lime, almost always, sometimes with orange or passionfruit alongside it. This is the slot people ruin. Bottled juice is the single fastest way to make a tiki drink taste flat and vaguely syrupy, and no amount of good rum rescues it.
Sweet. Orgeat (almond syrup), falernum, honey, or demerara syrup. This slot picks the drink's whole personality more than the rum does. Swap orgeat for falernum in the same build and you've made a different drink.
Spice or float. A dash of bitters, a float of overproof rum, or a spiced syrup on top. It's the smallest measure in the glass and the first thing anyone smells.
Watch it work
A Mai Tai is aged rum, lime, orgeat, orange curaçao. A Daiquiri is white rum, lime, simple syrup: the formula with the spice slot left empty, which is exactly why it's the drink you use to judge a rum honestly. A Jungle Bird swaps in blackstrap rum and Campari, so the bitter does the work the spice float usually does. Same skeleton every time.
The part that isn't the recipe
Use crushed ice, not cubed. Tiki drinks are built to dilute as you drink them: the melt is what carries a 100-proof pour into something you can actually sip, and cubed ice melts too slowly to do that job. A cheap blender pulse or a Lewis bag will improve your drinks more than spending another fifteen dollars on rum.
Where to go next
Our Rum & Tiki Night kit pairs each tier's bottle with the build made to show it off, Daiquiri through Jungle Bird, so you're tasting the rum and the structure at the same time.