*This post was updated on June 16, 2011, as it relates to Pusser’s vs. Painkiller.

I’ve never been a big believer in alternative medicine. While there are centuries-old practices like acupuncture–and even relatively new ones like chiropracty–that seem to deliver on what they promise, I can’t really get down with all the new-age therapies that pop up from the neo-hippy set and their “exotic” fruit/herb/remedy of the moment. Last year’s big thing was pomegranates (never mind that Persians have been eating them since before Christ); this year it seems to be Acai; next year it’ll probably be dung beetle extract for all we know. Whatever. And aromatherapy? Gimme a frickin’ break. What ails those folks can only be cured by psychotherapy.

Nevertheless health care in this country ain’t cheap, and for many (myself included) it’s simply not affordable. And holding my breath for the Democrats to pass a real health care bill with a public option, well, let’s say I’m not a huge fan of death by self-suffocation. Frankly, these current Democrats make Neville Chamberlain look like Braveheart.

So like a mini-skirted hooker in a men’s prison in Kabul, the dire reality of the situation is sinking in fast. Thus I realized I may have to readjust my position on this whole alternative medicine idea and start looking toward home remedies, so self-medication it is!

Lucky for me I deal with the alcoholic arts. Throughout history alcohol has been there to cure man’s ailments (or at least hide the pain) when doctors haven’t–and no booze-based beverage better demonstrates the phrase “drink away the pain” then that summertime serum known aptly as the Painkiller. If drinks were drugs (sometimes they actually are, like roofies, but I’m operating along more metaphorical lines here), the Painkiller would be the prescription version of a Pina Colada–double the amount of active ingredient (rum), plus some fresh OJ and a sprinkle of nutmeg to complement the pineapple and coconut flavors that make it all go down so easily. And of course plenty of ice, because as doctors will surely tell you, you must ice the pain.

The Painkiller was invented by a wily witch doctor at the Soggy Dollar Bar on the remote island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. Apparently there are no docks on this small island so to reach it patrons must swim to it, hence the name Soggy Dollar. It didn’t take long for this catholiconic cocktail to make its way to the neighboring islands whose residents were also in dire need of a cure-all.

My first encounter with this remedy was in the island of St. Thomas. I not only needed relief from the severe sunburn I received as a result of using organic sunscreen, but was also inflicted with the double-whammy of thirstitis and soberepsy! I described my ailment to the local shaman on the island and he immediately instructed me to find the nearest tabernacle of tippling and order a Painkiller. Given my skepticism of alternative medicine I was of course reticent. But I followed through on the good doctor’s orders nonetheless, and upon the first sip I noticed the symptoms of thirstitis were waning; the second and third sips induced such an ethereal, blissful feeling that I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was completely rid of my soberepsy; by the final sip I had so forgotten about the pain of the sunburn that I felt I could have played tackle football with a school of sharks.

I knew instantly that I had to procure this secret recipe for myself. Given the bleak outlook of the health care situation in this country, it’s appropriate that I now share this recipe with you. It is the least I can do for my countrymen (and women).

The Painkiller
4 oz Pusser’s rum Dark funky rum or blend thereof (Jamaican rums are great)
4 oz pineapple juice (fresh is best)
1 oz cream of coconut (Coco Lopez is preferred)
1 oz fresh-squeezed orange juice
plenty of crushed ice (at least 8 oz maybe more depending on glass size)
sprinkle of nutmeg (mandatory)
sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

Tools: blender

Glass: any fear-inducingly large glass, goblet, vessel, bowl, or tiki mug

Fill your glass with the crushed ice. Blend liquid ingredients on high for 2-3 seconds and pour over the ice. Sprinkle a healthy dose of nutmeg on top, along with cinnamon if you desire (you should, it works well). Drop in a straw and let the healing begin.

An important yet oft-overlooked element in this drink is the nutmeg. It’s called for in the original recipe and it makes a notable difference even though it’s not mixed into the drink itself. The cinnamon on the other hand is not originally called for but it makes a nice addition as well.

The Painkiller is also one of those rare drinks that specifically calls out its brand of spirit–Pusser’s rum in this case.  It’s what the original recipe calls for. Correction: Robert Simonson has noted on his blog that according to noted Tiki drink expert Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, the drink was invented in 1971, a decade prior to the existence of the Pusser’s brand, and was originally made using Mt. Gay and Cruzan rums. So despite what the company claims, you can substitute other rums in this recipe. Just make sure you keep away from the lighter-bodied rums, as this drink needs darker aged rums with more flavor and mouthfeel. I personally like to mix things up a bit, sometimes combining 2 ounces of Ron Pampero Aniversario with 2 ounces of El Dorado 15 yr–it produces a different tasting drink to be sure, but delicious nonetheless.

Or perhaps you have a blend or variation of your own that you’d like to recommend, which I’d love to hear. Here’s to self-medication. Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

Paystyle was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles (aka Tehrangeles) before moving to Brooklyn with his wife and co-pilot Vanessa Bahmani who provides the stunning photography of Pay’s cocktail concoctions. Return every Wednesday for his weekly Happy Hour column.

The Mai Tai is one of the most important and enduring drinks in the continuum of the American cocktail–it is an indelible piece of the ever-changing mosaic called “Americana.” That it instantly conjures images of tropical sunsets, surfboards, and other props fitting for the mis en scene of Beach Blanket Bingo is the reason it has assumed the role of Chief Ambassador to Vacationland. Although the Mai Tai was not the first Tiki drink created, it is without a doubt the most famous of them.

Often such popularity leads to enhancement, if not perfection. However this never seems to be the case in the world of the cocktail. It seems that cocktails, like musicians, become watered down versions of their former selves when they attain a certain level of fame. The modern Mai Tai, it appears, has become the cocktail version of the rapper Ice Cube–it bares resemblance to the original back-in-the-day version only in name and not much else, to the chagrin of the old school fans. So while many of you have undoubtedly consumed a Mai Tai in your lives, few if any of you have had an actual one.

It may pain you but nonetheless you deserve to know that many of you have been victims of wholesale misrepresentation. To give you an idea as to the level of misrepresentation you’ve been subjected to, imagine if you’ve been told that you’re going to enjoy a meal prepared by Guy Savoy, but in fact (and without you’re knowledge) it’s prepared by Guy Fieri instead. Naturally you’re reaction would be something along the lines of “I don’t see what’s so special about this meal,” or “tastes like something a douchebag would make.” Well, this is essentially what’s been happening with the Mai Tai. They are being made by douchebags and sold to you as a Mai Tai, but in fact you’re getting something that bares scant resemblance.

Some of the variations have been for good reason, as many of the ingredients called for in the original Mai Tai recipe are either defunct or difficult to come by. For example, a bottle of 17-yr old J. Wray & Nephew Jamaican rum, which is what the original recipe called for, will cost you upward of $50,000 since it’s no longer in production. But such things neither explain nor excuse the mutations and shortcuts that have amassed over the years, as one good rum can simply be substituted for another. The real reason is a mix of laziness and the desire to accommodate popular demand, as speed and facility win out in an attempt to churn out drinks as quickly as possible, until a point is reached when neither the bartender nor the patron remember what the real thing tastes like.

So what is a real Mai Tai? I’ll get to that in a bit (there’s some complication involved in the answer) but first it’s easier to explain what isn’t a real Mai Tai. If you’ve had one with orange juice in it, or pineapple juice in it, or any juice in it other than a lime, then it wasn’t a real Mai Tai. If it had grenadine in it, it wasn’t a real Mai Tai. A real one, Mai friends, is quite simple, and when it is well made it is a reminder of all that is good in the world. As usual the necessary instructions follow further below, but first the slightly complicated and controversial story of the real Mai Tai.

At the heart of the Mai Tai’s story is a dispute about who deserves credit for its creation. Tiki-bar tycoon “Trader Vic” Bergeron claims he created the drink in 1944 while hosting friends from Tahiti at his Oakland restaurant. According to his story, he presented this new creation to his Tahitian pals, and upon tasting it one of them exclaimed “Maita’i roa ae!” which is apparently a Tahitian expression meaning “very good, out of this world!” Thus the newborn was given the name Mai Tai.

This story is chiefly disputed by another titan of the Tiki world, the man who’s credited with starting the Tiki trend that swept the country during the 1950s and 60s, Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt aka “Don the Beachcomber.” According to Mr. Beachcomber, Trader Vic’s Mai Tai is just a rip-off of a drink he created in 1933 called the “Q.B. Cooler.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Beachcomber, history has sided with Trader Vic on this issue, as the consensus among the cocktail cognoscente is that the Mai Tai is Trader Vic’s creation. Although my own research ultimately led me to conclude the same, Mr. Beachcomber’s argument is not without merit.

Trader Vic was surely influenced by Don because he admitted so himself, stating that a visit to Don’s restaurant in 1937 inspired him to convert his own place, Hinky Dink’s, into a Tiki joint and to change the name to Trader Vic’s. It’s possible that on this influential visit he tasted the Q.B. Cooler and was inspired to replicate it. The task of replicating Don’s Q.B. Cooler would have been difficult to accomplish, however, since Don’s recipes were kept secret at that time. So for Vic to have copied Don, it would have been based on taste alone, as he wouldn’t have been privy to Don’s recipe.

This seems plausible because the two drinks are similar in flavor profile–similar, but not even close to being identical. The Q.B. Cooler recipe was eventually made known to the world, and its dissimilarity to the Mai Tai recipe couldn’t be more obvious. While the Mai Tai is a simple drink based on rum, lime juice, orange curacao, and orgeat (a french almond flavored syrup pronounced “or-zawt”), the Q.B. Cooler is a complex concoction based on a recipe that reads like a grocery list: lime juice, orange juice, passionfruit, sugar, two types of rum, Cointreau, falernum (Caribbean originated syrup similar in flavor to orgeat), bitters, and pastis.

From this perspective it seems conceivable that Trader Vic was attempting to copy the Q.B. Cooler, but in the process wound up creating a drink similar in taste yet completely new–a drink that took the cocktail world by tropical storm in the 1950s, and eventually gained widespread recognition as the king of Tiki drinks. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to Don the Beachcomber (as a lawyer would say), this is still the most plausible conclusion. It’s also a reasonable conclusion because it convincingly settles the matter by recognizing Trader Vic as the creator of the drink people refer to when they order a Mai Tai, but also recognizes the influence of Don the Beachcomber on this drink in particular, and the wider Tiki world in general.

Perhaps the best way though is to judge for yourselves. Below are the recipes for Don’s Q.B. Cooler and the original Mai Tai as created by Trader Vic. In addition, I’ve provided my own recipe for a Mai Tai, adapted with ingredients commonly available today while trying to maintain as much fidelity to the original as possible.

Q.B. Cooler
2 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 oz light Puerto Rican rum
½ oz Cointreau
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz fresh orange juice
¼ oz Falernum
¼ oz passion fruit syrup
1/8 tsp Pernod (about a dash)
dash or two of Angostura
lots of ice
mint sprig and/or fruit for garnish

Tools: shaker, strainer

Glass: double old-fashioned or tiki mug

Place everything in shaker and shake for a few seconds. Strain into a glass filled with crushed ice and garnish with the mint and/or fruit.

Mai Tai (original formula)
2 ounces 17-year-old J. Wray Nephew Jamaican rum
½ ounce French Garnier Orgeat
½ ounce Holland DeKuyper Orange Curacao
¼ ounce Rock Candy Syrup (rock candy based syrup with a light vanilla essence)
juice from one fresh lime
lots of ice
mint sprig and empty lime shell for garnish

Tools: shaker, strainer

Glass: double old-fashioned

Place everything in cocktail shaker and shake well. Strain into a glass filled with crushed ice, garnish with the lime shell inside the drink, and float a sprig of fresh mint at the edge of the glass.

Mai Tai (adapted)
1 oz Appleton Estate V/X Jamaican rum (substitute other quality amber rum)
1 oz El Dorado 15 yr rum (substitute other Demerara rum)
1 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz Grand Marnier (can substitute good quality orange curacao though I prefer GM)
1/2 oz orgeat syrup (you can make your own like I did with this recipe here)
lots of ice
mint sprig and empty lime shell for garnish

Tools: shaker, strainer

Glass: double old-fashioned

Fill the glass with crushed ice. Place everything in a cocktail shaker along with cracked ice and shake briefly yet energetically. Strain into the glass and drop in the lime shell. Roll the mint sprig between your fingers a couple times to release some of its aroma and place it in the glass. Serve with a straw.

Since some of the ingredients of a Mai Tai are either defunct or hard to find, it’s natural to make substitutions as long as they stay within reason. In fact, the Mai Tai lends itself quite well to substitutions without ruining the integrity of the original flavor profile. And it’s fun swapping out different rums to find the tastiest combinations. Some like to combine a light and a dark, or a rhum agricole and a Jamaican. I personally enjoy a combination of Jamaican amber and aged Demerara rum, which is also consistent with Trader Vic approved adjustments of the Mai Tai recipe that came later as a result of shortages of the 17 yr old J. Wray & Nephew brand.

Looks like you guys have lots of mixing ahead of you, so I better leave you to it–plus I’m late for my date with the sunset. Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

Paystyle was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles (aka Tehrangeles) before moving to Brooklyn with his wife and co-pilot Vanessa Bahmani who provides the stunning photography of Pay’s cocktail concoctions. Return every Wednesday for his weekly Happy Hour column.

The tropical climate of the Okinawa Islands yields wonderful fruits. Our visit, in the beginning of September, coincided with the best of pineapple season. I was eager to try as much fruit as possible.

My first chance was the hotel morning buffet. Morning buffets at hotels are usually quite mediocre, but the Ishigaki Seaside Hotel morning buffet is one of the top reasons why I’d go back to Ishigaki. The fruit selection was simple but exquisite – fresh pineapple, melon, island bananas (the size of your thumb) and colorful citrus fruits. Unfortunately, I was usually pretty brain dead in the morning and did not take my camera with me.

Luckily, I captured most of our other fruit indulgences on film:

Pineapples for cats and other mid-sized animals
… is what I thought they were. Apparently, they grow these for decorative purposes. Unfortunately, I don’t have photos of human-sized pineapples.

This is a fruit stand on the side of the road, where they gave us free slices of dragon fruit. Hot pink on the outside, white with black speck-seeds on the inside. Less juicy than I expected, less tasty than expected. Overall, I’d say it’s a visual spectacle more than a journey in taste bud titillation.

What is this? I bought this not knowing the name of it. It smells like cake. And when you break it open, it literally falls apart. The concept of this fruit turned out to be similar to a pomegranate, suck-the-meat-off-the-seeds deal. This was good, but too syrupy-sweet for my taste. I found myself abandoning the second one I bought in the hotel fridge. Please if anyone knows the name of this, let me know!

Mango! This was wonderful. It tasted like the best mango of the season from the Berkeley farmer’s market. It made me miss California, where you can buy a mango for 80 cents. This one set us back 500 yen (close to $5 USD) for less-than half.

But check out these mangos… 5 of these babies will leave a crater in your wallet at 16,000 yen or about $150 USD (the dollar is so weak now that it’ll make you cry even harder).

*Read all of Yoko’s Ishigaki Travels
Dream Shop TOMORU
Do the Gyu, OG Style
The Largest Living Arthropod in the World

Ishigakijima is the most beautiful place I have ever been to. It was the ideal vacation spot to chill out and enjoy a clear, calm ocean full of coral reef and snow white sands.

We spent our first day driving around the 88 square mile island in our rental car. Our first eating adventure took us to Dream Shop TOMORU owned by Japanese comedian Shimada Shinsuke. Neither me or Washi are fans of Shimada, but decided to pop in anyway. Besides, there was a life-size dummy of Shimada directing us his way.

Shimada Shinsuke dummy and me (just call me Buffy… I’ve been swimming!

I had been completely skeptical of taco rice until about a year ago when my band mate took me to a small place called Free Factory in Shimokitazawa (Tokyo) serving taco rice. Taco rice originated from Okinawa – and speculated as being a by-product of American occupation on the island.

Anyway, I decided to order the taco rice lunch set at TOMURU. Washi ordered curry lunch set.

Measly salad with a few strips of goya.

This taco rice had way too much tomato sauce! I wish that they had practiced moderation with the cheese as well. Despite tomato sauce overload, the rice and meat were too dry. The ratios were all wrong. I was also thoroughly disappointed that there were no avocados on top, which is usually a given in Tokyo. The overall impression was that none of the flavors encouraged entree symbiosis. In other words, I felt like I was eating rice, plus tomato sauce, plus cheese, plus a few strands of goya and some dry ground beef.

Check out how dry the taco rice looks

Washi’s curry wasn’t bad, but nothing to report on.

Sure it might be Shimada Shinsuke’s dream shop, but some of my nightmares are even better than this. Ouch!

Dream Shop TOMURU
〒907-0332
Okinawa-ken, Ishigaki-shi Ibaruma 231-12
JAPAN
T: 0980-89-2489

*Read all of Yoko’s Ishigaki Travels
Fruit Fetish
Do the Gyu, OG Style
The Largest Living Arthropod in the World

The Daintree Icecream Co. is a little hut on the side of the road that makes ice cream from tropical fruit they’ve grown on their property. You can’t choose what flavor you want…you just have to take what they have. And they INSIST you take a cup full of ALL that day’s flavors. That day, each cup had scoops of pineapple, mango, black sapote (kind of dark like chocolate, but fruitier) and wattleseed (reminiscent of hazelnut or amaretto?) ice cream. Delicious! Here are some pics of this idyllic little spot…

The ice cream “hut”:


Where all the picked fruit was stored:





Black Sapote (one of the flavors)

Wattleseed (one of the flavors)

It was so perfectly ripe that it was just cracking open by itself.

I found the shell of the fruit to be quite interesting and alien looking. Sorry I haven’t eaten that many asian fruits! By this time it was starting to smell bad…

The texture was like…lightly fibrous avocado? It was so sweet and delicious and creamy!! It’s like the butter of fruits. Okay so what happened was that I didn’t want to eat it all at once so I put it in this glass Pyrex dish with a rubber lid in the fridge. During the night I just kept smelling it and smelling it (through the rubber and glass and through the fridge!).

I so didn’t want to eat it the next day. So when I got back home…I started getting nauseous and gagging just at the thought of it. So yeah the moral is…eat it all at once? Also it’s so not worth the smell. I feel ill at the thought of it right now, actually.

Papayas tend to get really huge, so I like to buy mine pre-cut. Little rules for the single person in NYC- only buy what you can eat! Here’s what I picked up at my corner grocer- not cheap.

One thing- the seeds of the papaya are very very creepy. I don’t know what it is- they are just hundreds of small black balls. They’re almost insect-like, it gives me the eeby-jeebies. There’s nothing like it in the fruit family though, I don’t think- it’s fascinating.

Someone once told me that papayas are a sexual fruit- sorta vaginal, maybe?

Squirt some lemon on it and you’re good to go. So fresh and so clean, clean.

Speaking of vaginas, I just saw Judy Chicago’s famed work, The Dinner Party, on permanent view at the Brooklyn Museum this weekend. The Georgia O’Keefe plate is off the hook! Go check it out!