The fifth entry in the series where my wife Sabrina and I journey through the wide wonderful world of classic cocktails by crafting and drinking recipes together at our home bar. Today let’s get tropical with the delicious and sometimes controversial Painkiller!
Recipe:
- 2 oz Pusser’s Rum
- 4 oz Pineapple Juice
- 1 oz Fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 oz Coco Lopez Cream of Coconut
- Garnish: Nutmeg
Add all the liquids to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a goblet or big glass filled with ice. Grate fresh nutmeg on top.
Intro:
I had my first Painkiller back in the early 90s at the Soggy Dollar Bar at Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. A couple buddies and I had traveled out to St. John (U.S. Virgin Islands) to work in kitchens and sling drinks behind a bar for a summer during college, and our first week there we made a jaunt over to the Soggy Dollar to knock back a couple of these legendary cocktails and smoke cuban cigars on its beautiful white sandy beaches.
Oh and I played the hook and ring toss game for the first time there as well, with the hook nailed into a palm tree on the beach. I didn’t see that game again for probably over two decades until it became ubiquitous in breweries.
It was quite an experience for a college kid who’d never been outside the continental U.S. and had maybe stepped foot on a plane one time before that. But enough about me…
The Soggy Dollar is appropriately named because there are no docks on the beach outside this island bar, so folks have to anchor their boats and swim to shore, thus resulting in soggy dollars to pay for the drink. A dollar, by the way, is a weird little green piece of paper that was used to pay for things in the old days before we were cyborgs.
The Soggy Dollar’s owner, Daphne Henderson, invented the Painkiller about 20 years before my visit.
The “official” rum used in a Painkiller is Pusser’s, and for the drink I made, I just directly followed the measurements from the Pusser’s recipe. The Pusser’s recipe, however, is not the original Soggy Dollar recipe which remains a secret, but was actually the founder of Pusser’s attempt to emulate it. According to Pusser’s history, the founder’s version was agreed by all the Soggy Dollar patrons to be the superior one (conveniently), and thus became Pusser’s official recipe.
Things even get a bit more controversial in the Painkiller history books because Pusser’s later trademarked the name “Painkiller,” and apparently even sued a bar that opened under the name “Painkiller” that served a version of the drink that didn’t include Pusser’s rum. This move was not a popular one with the drink making crowd.
Controversy aside, I went forward with using the Pusser’s recipe because I guess it’s an “official” version, if not the true Soggy Dollar version, and it’s not like I remember what the one I drank at Soggy Dollar in the 90s tasted like anyway. I was 20, for Christ’s sake, man. I didn’t know shit about shit. Especially cocktails. My only regular cocktail at the time would have been if I accidentally knocked over a jager shot and it mixed with the Budweiser that I had accidentally knocked over. I digress…
Anyway, it’s a hell of a tasty, fun, tropical drink. A bit like a pina colada, but with a whole lotta extra awesome. ← Pusser’s, ping me if you want to talk about borrowing this badass line.
Recipe Rationale:
As repeatedly stated, I used the Pusser’s recipe. The one on their website also says to garnish with a cherry and an orange slice, but the one I always reference from a photo on my phone doesn’t mention that, so I left it out. Do with this knowledge as you will.
Pusser’s Rum Blue Label: On Pusser’s website, they show them making it with Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof, but I’ve always used this Blue Label, and I like it a lot.
Pineapple Juice: I used just a can of Dole from the grocery store. I should have at least looked for fresh pineapple juice from the fruit section but the store had a few people in it, and that’s a few goddamn too many people for me. Get me out.
Orange juice: As always, freshly squeezed is key! Get a squeezer or juicer if you don’t have one.
Cocoa Lopez Cream of Coconut: Pusser’s recipe doesn’t specifically call for Cocoa Lopez, but this stuff is classic. It’s also what we used in the bar where I worked in St. John USVI so many years ago. Admittedly, a squeeze bottle of Coco Real Cream of Coconut is easier to work with.
Ice: I went with crushed ice for the glass, using a Lewis Bag to handle the crushin’. It’s a canvas bag that you fill with ice and then bash it with a wooden mallet. It’s an inexpensive but invaluable bar tool, especially if you’re going to make tropical or Tiki drinks. Get ya one of those.
Verdict:
“Painkiller was tasty! I always like a good Painkiller. The mess up one was perfect as a drink while cooking, and knowing there was and even better one on the way to enjoy with dinner had me stoked.”
Sab
“Painkillers are delicious and are fun to make, with the one exception being that I seem to always get sticky Cocoa Lopez all over everything. The juice and the coconut cream give it an awesome frothy consistency which complements the rum rather than completely burying it, but it’s definitely a fruity tropical drink and not a rum-intense drink. The challenge in drinking one is to not chug it.”
Bones
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