Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands · 1970s
Painkiller
There is no dock. You swim ashore and pay with wet bills.
- Created by
- Daphne Henderson, Soggy Dollar Bar
- Tastes like
- Coconut, pineapple, and nutmeg over navy rum
- Glass
- Tall glass over crushed ice
- Garnish
- Fresh-grated nutmeg. Nothing else, and no substitutes.
Ingredients
- 2 ozPusser's Navy rum (this is the "No. 2"; use 3 or 4 oz for the No. 3 and No. 4)
- 4 ozpineapple juice
- 1 ozcream of coconut
- 1 ozfresh orange juice
Method
- 1.Shake hard with ice, or blend briefly if you want it frothier.
- 2.Pour over crushed ice in a tall glass.
- 3.Grate fresh nutmeg generously over the top. This is not a garnish, it is an ingredient — most of what you smell is the nutmeg.
The Soggy Dollar Bar sits on White Bay on Jost Van Dyke and has no dock. Boats anchor offshore, guests swim in, and the bills they hand across the bar arrive wet. That is where the name came from and it is still how it works.
In the 1970s, owner Daphne Henderson served a house drink and would not give up the recipe. Charles Tobias of Pusser's Rum reverse-engineered it across repeated visits, standardized it around his own navy rum, and trademarked the name.
Which is why "Painkiller" on a menu is a legally defended term — Pusser's has enforced it, memorably against a New York bar of the same name in 2011 — and why plenty of bars serve this exact drink under some other title.
Thatch note
Pre-grated nutmeg out of a jar will not do it. Buy whole nutmeg and a microplane once and you will use them for the rest of your drinking life.