A message board, a missing bottle, and a kettle that never really cooled. Fifteen years of small-batch syrups — told through the labels.
The hand-drawn Trader Tiki's labelfrom the archive
August 2009
Trader Tiki's
It started, as these things do, on a message board. Blair Reynolds had been haunting Tiki Central since 2001 and writing about the tiki revival since 2007 — and somewhere in there, chasing the syrups the old exotica bars poured and nobody sold, he started making his own. In August 2009 those small batches got a name: Trader Tiki's. The first labels were hand-drawn, a home operation in the truest sense — mixed and bottled by the same guy whose name is on the bottle today.
The first BG Reynolds bottlesfrom the archive
2010–2011
Becoming BG Reynolds
Trader Tiki's grew, and with it the sense that the syrups ought to carry the name of the person actually making them. Around 2010, Trader Tiki's became BG Reynolds — Blair G. Reynolds — the same kettle, the same obsession, a name that could stand on a shelf of its own.
The 2018 Kickstarterfrom the archive
2018
The Kickstarter
By 2018 the catalog had outgrown what one person could keep in steady production, and some favorites had gone quiet. The fix was a Kickstarter — which funded in under four hours. It brought lost flavors back to the kettle and put BG Reynolds on real footing. (Some of those flavors are still up for a vote.)
2019
The Canepa Rebrand
In 2019, designer Tony Canepa gave the line the look it wears now — the clean, mid-century labels on every current bottle. Earnest exotica played completely straight: the printed artifact this whole shop is built around.
Today
Still small-batch, still Portland
Today BG Reynolds ships nationwide, sits on the shelves of bottle shops and behind the bars of some very good tiki rooms, and gets poured at Disney's Trader Sam's. Same kettle. Same obsession. The whole bar, one shelf at a time.
