This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.
There are a lot of ways to cool down in the armpit days of summer. Personal face fans. Ice cubes tucked into bra bands. Whatever that big box is in my bedroom window. But the best way, in my opinion, is by drinking a Painkiller.
It’s capitalized because it’s a patented drink by Pusser’s Rum, but I’ve only had the one made by Shannon Mustipher at Glady’s in Brooklyn. Her version follows Pusser’s recipe but omits the orange juice: 2 oz. Pusser’s rum (it must to be a real Painkiller, but don’t make me explain what Navy rum is, it’s too hot to think), 4 oz. pineapple juice, and 2 oz. cream of coconut. Shake all of that and serve over ice with freshly grated nutmeg on top and a wedge of orange to garnish.
That is to say, a Painkiller tastes like the beach. (Which is fitting! It’s the official drink of the British Virgin Islands, originating at the famous Soggy Dollar Bar.) It’s creamy and tropical like a piña colada without the fuss of being frozen, with more acidic tang from the fruit juices. The rum, which has some deep molasses and baking spice notes, chills in the background so nearly undetectable you will want to order a third and get some sort of navy rum–themed tattoo on a boardwalk somewhere.
I asked Mustipher why the drink is so perfect and she broke it down like the cocktail genius she is (check out her new book, Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails, for a sailor’s treasure trove of recipes): “The rum is kind of like having carbs, and the coconut cream is fat, and then you have sugar. And that’s why a cheeseburger is really popular, because the receptors in your brain respond very positively to the combination of those three elements.”
And what about the name? “If you have any problems before you start having that cocktail, you won’t have problems after you finish it.”