Immersive home Tiki bar enhanced by AromaPrime

'I built a Tiki bar in my backyard,' says AromaPrime customer Kris Van de Sande. As a photographer for fragrant theme parks, including Plopsaland, Toverland and Efteling, Kris is well-versed in themed entertainment. When he asked for a scent to use in his elaborate home tiki bar, we were delighted to help!

Kris continues: 'Whenever people hear that, they expect a small bamboo bar with a few bottles of rum between some shrubberies. However, when I tell them it’s more like a completely immersive indoor space, they start to pay attention. Then when they walk in, their eyes light up, and they never stop looking around.

'Having been introduced to Tiki by Disneyland, I later discovered what Tiki was all about. After a few memorable evenings in iconic bars like Trader Vic's and his Disney cousin Trader Sam's, I knew I wanted this experience much closer to home. And I might have had just the place.

'Being no stranger to extravagantly designing my home spaces, we earlier had decorated our garden shed into an Edwardian drawing room during the first lockdowns of COVID. However, it just never really worked. It was a space for the two of us, and we already had a great living room. So in the end I tore it all down and started with a clean plate: The Hideaway. A hidden Tiki bar that seats 5 guests and a bartender.'

Kris told the AromaPrime team about the high goals he had for his project.

'I wanted to transport people away from the city into a perpetual night jungle, touching every sense,' he says, with considerations around the touch of the bamboo, the tastes of the original cocktails and the sounds of the birds. 'But one of the most important things to me was smell.

'As soon as you start crafting cocktails, you get a delicious palette of smells like rums, freshly cut citrus, freshly grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and mint that gives a good smack to release all the aromas. But this room should impress from the first moment. So I chose an AromaPrime Vortex Compact to further enhance it. I previously installed one in my office to distribute a lovely and distinguished Oudh fragrance. But for this room, we wanted something that would be pleasant, yet had a hint of adventure and tropical.'

Kris' Vortex Compact scent machine is attached to the wall in a second room of the shed. The unit comes with tubing, which allows Kris to discreetly feed the scent flow through the wall, so it can diffuse from a leafy roof in the bar area.

'With all the Pacific themes, our first ideas were to go with a pirates inspired palette (though pirates is not Tiki. Wrong ocean). But after testing samples, these smelled adventurous, but not a smell that would invite for hours. We also didn't want to have a facsimile cocktail smell to fight the actual aromas. We chose for a more floral scent, and in the end it was clear: Desert Flower.