The Painkiller drink: the Virgin Islands recipe, two ways

Painkiller drink ingredients, as each recipe prints them

Both recipes use 2 ounces of rum, 1 ounce of cream of coconut and fresh nutmeg, and they part company on the juice. Pusser's, the rum company that sells the drink as the Pusser's Painkiller®, prints a pineapple-led glass. The Soggy Dollar Bar on White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, prints an orange-led one, built in a 12-ounce glass.

From Pusser's recipe and large-batch pages and the Soggy Dollar Bar's Painkiller history page, all checked Oct 9, 2026.

The gap is wide. Pusser's glass is half pineapple juice; the bar's is a third orange juice and a sixth pineapple. Rum is a quarter of Pusser's 8 ounces and a third of the bar's 6, so the bar's glass is the stronger of the two before the ice melts.

How to make the drink Painkiller, Pusser's way

Pusser's method needs a cocktail shaker. Put 2 ounces of Pusser's Rum, 4 of pineapple juice, 1 of orange juice and 1 of cream of coconut in the shaker and shake it hard. Pour it into a big glass or goblet filled with ice, grate fresh nutmeg over the top, and finish with an orange slice and a cherry.

Pusser's calls it "a smooth and sneaky drink", and the measures agree: 2 ounces of rum under 6 ounces of juice and coconut. Count the glasses, not how strong each one tastes.

How the Soggy Dollar Bar builds its original

The bar does not shake it. Its history page builds the drink over ice in a 12-ounce glass: 2 ounces of dark rum, 1 of pineapple juice, 2 of orange juice and 1 of cream of coconut, rolled from one glass to another to blend, with nutmeg grated fresh and "never pre-ground". A "triple" pour is offered "at your own risk".

The bar's front page names the nutmeg as Grenadian and still calls the proportions secret; the table above uses the ones its history page prints. There is no dock on White Bay, Pusser's says, so the usual way in is to swim, and the dollars arrive wet.

Who invented the Painkiller, by each account

The two accounts agree on the beach, not on the inventor. The Soggy Dollar Bar says the Painkiller was created in the 1970s at the Sandcastle Hotel on White Bay by George and Marie Myrick. It quotes George Myrick's book: they mixed orange juice, pineapple juice and coconut cream and poured it over "Mount Gay or Cruzan Gold, dealer's choice", and Marie named the drink after a noni tree near the Gusset House. Daphne Henderson, the second owner, later turned the hotel's bar into the Soggy Dollar.

Pusser's tells it from Henderson's bar. Its founder, Charles Tobias, won the Royal Navy Admiralty Board's permission to sell the rum commercially in 1979, came to drink her Painkiller, and for two years could not get the recipe out of her. He worked one out on Tortola himself: a "4-1-1-1" ratio of four parts pineapple, one part cream of coconut and one part orange juice, "adding Pusser's Rum to suit". By Pusser's account, ten patrons at her bar preferred his version, and he served it first at the Road Town Pub, then at his restaurants at West End and on Marina Cay.

Pusser's prints the name with the registered sign, Pusser's Painkiller®, and says it credits Henderson in its printed media with the line "As inspired by Daphne at the Soggy Dollar Bar at White Bay on Jost Van Dyke".

Which rum goes in a Painkiller drink?

Pusser's Rum if you follow Pusser's, any dark rum if you follow the bar. Pusser's names its own rum in every version it prints, and its account says Henderson's original was made with Pusser's too. The Soggy Dollar Bar's recipe says only dark rum, and George Myrick's account names Mount Gay or Cruzan Gold. On St. John, The Beach Bar in Cruz Bay builds its Painkiller on Cruzan Dark Rum.

Whichever bottle you buy, the measure in both published recipes is the same 2 ounces a glass.

A Painkiller drink recipe for a villa crowd

Pusser's own large batch is 5 gallons, which it calls 100 Painkillers: six and a half 750 ml bottles of rum, five 64-ounce bottles of pineapple juice, one and a half 52-ounce bottles of orange juice, and five 15-ounce cans of Coco Lopez cream of coconut. It heats the coconut until smooth, stirs everything together and serves it over ice. Over 100 glasses that is 6.4 ounces a drink and 1.6 ounces of rum, a smaller glass at the same strength as the single recipe.

For a house of four to twelve, the single recipe multiplies straight:

Pusser's one-drink recipe multiplied, checked Oct 9, 2026. A 750 ml bottle holds about 25 ounces, so twelve drinks take one bottle, and one 15-ounce can of cream of coconut covers fifteen. Pusser's heats the coconut for its batch, which is stirred rather than shaken; do the same for a pitcher.

Where to order a Painkiller on St. John

The Beach Bar in Cruz Bay lists one on its own menu. Read on Oct 9, 2026, the menu carries the Beach Bar Painkiller among its drinks on the rocks, described as "our famous take on the Virgin Islands classic" of Cruzan Dark Rum, pineapple and coconut; no orange juice is named. The bar is in Wharfside Village, which its site places just down the beach from the Cruz Bay ferry dock.

We name a bar here only when its own menu lists the drink. Whichever recipe you follow, the nutmeg goes on last, grated fresh over the ice.

Questions people ask

What is in a Painkiller drink?

Dark rum, pineapple juice, orange juice and cream of coconut, served over ice with fresh nutmeg grated on top. Pusser's, which sells it as the Pusser's Painkiller®, uses its own rum and adds an orange slice and a cherry. The Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke uses the same four liquids in different proportions and names only dark rum.

What's in a Painkiller drink at the Soggy Dollar Bar?

By the bar's own history page, 2 ounces of dark rum, 1 of pineapple juice, 2 of orange juice and 1 of cream of coconut, over ice in a 12-ounce glass, with nutmeg grated fresh. The bar's front page still calls the proportions secret. Its glass carries twice as much orange juice as pineapple, the reverse of Pusser's recipe, which leads with 4 ounces of pineapple.

How to make the drink Painkiller?

Per Pusser's, shake 2 ounces of Pusser's Rum, 4 of pineapple juice, 1 of orange juice and 1 of cream of coconut hard in a cocktail shaker, pour it into a big glass filled with ice, and grate nutmeg over the top. For the Soggy Dollar Bar's version, build it in the glass with its measures and roll it from one glass to another to mix.

How to make a Painkiller mixed drink for a crowd?

Pusser's large-batch recipe makes 5 gallons, which it counts as 100 drinks: 160 ounces of rum, 320 of pineapple juice, 80 of orange juice and 80 of cream of coconut, the coconut heated until smooth, all stirred together and poured over ice by the glass. For twelve, one 750 ml bottle of rum is enough.