A Painkiller with watermelon. Same rum, pineapple and coconut cream base, with fresh watermelon shaken through it — lighter, fresher, and a better hot-weather drink than the original.
Ingredients:
- 2 oz Bombarda Drake
- 4 chunks fresh watermelon
- 1 oz pineapple juice
- 1/2 oz cream of coconut (Coco Real)
- Freshly grated nutmeg and a pineapple or watermelon wedge, to garnish
Method of Attack:
- Add the rum, pineapple juice, watermelon chunks and cream of coconut to a shaker with ice.
- Shake vigorously until well chilled and the watermelon has broken down.
- Strain into a hurricane glass or snifter over crushed ice.
- Grate fresh nutmeg over the top and garnish with a pineapple or watermelon wedge.
- Serve with a straw.
About This Recipe:
Drake's wake is the water a ship leaves behind — and following in someone's wake means taking the course they set. Sir Francis Drake spent the 1570s and 80s crossing the same Caribbean our rums come from, and the drinks that came out of that region afterwards are all, in some sense, in his wake.
The watermelon is not a gimmick. It thins the coconut cream without watering the drink, which makes the Painkiller drinkable in heat where the original can sit heavy.
Why this rum:
Watermelon, pineapple juice and coconut cream — sweet, sweet and sweet. Watermelon in particular is delicate, and it is the first thing to disappear if anything else in the glass is sugary.
Drake is a five-origin dark blend with no added sugar, no caramel colorant and no chill filtration. Its molasses weight sits underneath the fruit rather than competing with it, and the absence of added sugar is what lets the watermelon still taste like watermelon.
Battle Notes:
Shake it hard enough to break the watermelon down properly, then double strain if you want it silky. Seedless watermelon, obviously.
For the original, see Culverin Killer. For the blended cousin, our Piña Colada guide.
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