Painkiller
Dark rum shaken with pineapple, orange and cream of coconut in a fixed four-to-one-to-one ratio, over crushed ice.
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring. Dilution is modelled rather than measured, as a fraction of the poured volume before any ice; dotted figures descend from that estimate.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
60 ml dark rum
120 ml fresh pineapple juice
30 ml cream of coconut
30 ml fresh orange juice
0.3 g freshly grated nutmeg
- 60 ml dark rum
- 120 ml fresh pineapple juice
- 30 ml cream of coconut
- 30 ml fresh orange juice
- 0.3 g freshly grated nutmeg
- ~120 ml water
Glass
Vessel
240 ml of liquid plus 219 ml of crushed ice occupies about 459 ml, inside the 470 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 1m 2sCombine the 60 ml dark rum, the 120 ml fresh pineapple juice, the 30 ml cream of coconut and the 30 ml fresh orange juice in a shaker with cubed ice.
The 120 ml fresh pineapple juice, the 30 ml cream of coconut and the 30 ml fresh orange juice stay at four parts to one to one whatever the rum measure; that ratio, not any single ingredient, is what the name has come to mean.
Shake hard for 12s until the coconut cream is fully worked through the juice.
Pour unstrained into a tiki mug packed with crushed ice.
Grate the 0.3 g freshly grated nutmeg over the top.
Common pitfallFresh pineapple juice carries real acidity that no dataset used here reports a figure for, so the composition below reads less sour than the drink actually tastes; that is a gap in the data rather than a claim that the drink is not tart.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
Dark rum, pineapple, orange and cream of coconut in a fixed four-to-one-to- one ratio, created at a swim-up bar on Jost Van Dyke and later trademarked by Pusser's Rum after its own inventor refused to share the recipe.
The drink is placed at the Soggy Dollar Bar, a beach bar on White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands, reachable only by swimming in from anchored boats 1. Its invention is credited to Daphne Henderson, the bar's owner through the 1970s, though at least one account from a former staff member disputes this and credits George Myrick, who ran the neighbouring Sandcastle bar before Henderson 2. The original was built on Cruzan rum rather than the Pusser's now associated with the name 2.
Charles Tobias, founder of Pusser's Rum, tried for roughly two years to get Henderson's recipe from her directly and was refused each time 1. He worked out his own version by taste rather than by being given the formula, and it was that reconstruction, not Henderson's original, that Pusser's registered as a US trademark on both the name and the recipe in 1989 2.
That trademark had a real consequence decades later: when a New York bar named itself Painkiller in 2011 and served the drink with rums other than Pusser's, the company issued a cease-and-desist, and the dispute was settled out of court only once the bar agreed to rebrand as PKNY 2. Bartenders in several cities responded by boycotting Pusser's Rum over the dispute 2. The ratio at the centre of both the original and the trademarked version (pineapple juice at four parts to one part each of cream of coconut and orange juice, over rum and crushed ice with grated nutmeg) is the one detail every account agrees on 2.
- 1Painkiller Cocktailgotrum.com
- 2Painkiller (cocktail)en.wikipedia.org