“Drink writing” is a hell of an occupation. There are moments when I stop to consider whether certain subjects of my scrutiny really should be subjected to scrutiny. Take tiki: Lavishly garnished drinks, sometimes served in anthropomorphic vessels, may seem the embodiment of silly excess.

But tiki is no joke. It began in the early 1930s at Don’s Beachcomber Cafe, where, Martin Cate writes in his new book, “Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki,” the “entertainment was the space itself,” decked out in palm trees and other island-evoking ephemera. The Trader Vic’s franchise soon followed.

In its early years, a few hours at a tiki bar were a great night out — a minivacation to a tropical fantasia — welcomed by people who had just lived through the Depression. Then, for a time, kitsch overtook quality. And tiki’s determined “exoticism,” with its cultural appropriations and discomfiting evocation of otherness, reasonably put some drinkers off.

A new generation of bars has emerged, like Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29 in New Orleans and Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, seeking to build on tiki’s history and to respect the traditions from which it was taken. Jeff Berry, an owner of Latitude 29, connects this development to the rise of the “craft” cocktail movement, which insists on refined skills and the best ingredients. With tiki, this serious approach must be coupled with joy: If it smacks of sanctimony, you’re doing it wrong. There’s still room for flashes of kitsch: a paper umbrella here, a palm frond there.