Painkiller (cocktail)

Lore & Background

The original Painkiller was created in the 1970s at the Soggy Dollar Bar at White Bay on the island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. The inventor may have been Daphne Henderson, or George and Marie Myrick, previous owners of the Soggy Dollar. It was originally made using Cruzan Rum.

In 1989, Pusser's Rum Ltd. filed a US trademark on the Painkiller's name and recipe. When a Tiki bar named Painkiller opened in New York City in 2011, Pusser's sent a cease and desist order to owners Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato, both for the bar's name and for selling Painkiller cocktails made with rums other than Pusser's. Gonzalez and Boccato reached an out-of-court settlement with Pusser's, which included them renaming the bar to PKNY. In response to the news, numerous bartenders organized a boycott against Pusser's Rum.

Reader's Guide

The Painkiller is significant as a modern classic cocktail that originated in the British Virgin Islands and became the subject of trademark disputes. Its creation in the 1970s at the Soggy Dollar Bar reflects the informal, beachside cocktail culture of the Caribbean. The trademarking by Pusser's Rum Ltd. in 1989 led to legal action against a New York bar in 2011, sparking a bartender boycott. This controversy highlights tensions between trademark protection and cocktail culture's tradition of sharing and adapting recipes. The cocktail's recipe—rum with four parts pineapple juice, one part cream of coconut, and one part orange juice, topped with nutmeg—remains widely recognized. Its legacy includes influencing tiki and tropical drink menus, while the legal battle underscores the challenges of intellectual property in the hospitality industry.