Doctor Funk Cocktail
According to the new cocktail book from Smuggler’s Cove there are “eight essential exotic elixirs”. They have been around since the beginning of tiki and either Don or Trader Vic were responsible for most of them. I was so excited to make each and every one until I discovered I’d already made the Mai Tai, the Hurricane and Planter’s Punch.
Luckily, there were still a few left that I could shake up for my summer of tiki. One was the Fog Cutter which I made a couple weeks ago. Another is the Dr. Funk which I’m bringing you today.
Unlike the Fog Cutter, this tiki drink is similar to most classic tiki cocktails in that it has rum in it. But we’re not talking about Bacardi silver or gold, here. This drink uses black rum. Never heard of black rum? Neither had I. According to Martin Cate (the author behind the Smuggler’s Cove book) black rum is a dark rum. It has little to no age, “but is defined by the addition of caramel, molasses or both to the finished rum and is typically much darker in appearance than even fifty years in a barrel could achieve.” It’s used in several cocktails and so always good to have on hand.
The doctor of the Doctor Funk was actually a German doctor by the name of Bernard Funk who worked in Samoa around the turn of the century. He was supposedly the man behind this concoction because as a doctor, he often had to prescribe medications. At the turn of the century medications often came in the form of alcohol concoctions. Future mixologists took Funk’s base ideas and turned them into an actual cocktail around Prohibition. Since no liquor was allowed in the states at that time, the drink took off in the South Pacific and became really popular in Tahiti. Once Prohibition was repealed though, Vic and Don each came up with their own version. Since there was a lot of theft between the two there’s no telling who’s was more popular or more famous. But since Vic’s came first, that’s the one I’m going with today.
What separates this cocktail from the other seven essentials and gives it that funky flavor for which it’s named, is the absinthe. As a matter of fact, Cate says that if you want the cocktail to really shine, absinthe isn’t the only necessity. You have to use a “funky rum” so “it stands up to and complements” the absinthe. The absinthe is so important, it is the only liquor in the drink that hasn’t changed over the course of the cocktail’s history. Once you taste it, you’ll understand why.
Doctor Funk Cocktail
Ingredients:
- 2-1/4 oz. black rum
- 1/4 oz. absinthe
- 1/2 oz. lemon juice
- 1/2 oz. lime juice
- 1/2 oz. simple syrup
- 1/4 oz. grenadine
- 1 oz. club soda
Directions:
- Add all the ingredients except the club soda to a cocktail shaker. Add crushed ice and shake vigorously for about 30 seconds.
- Pour into a double old-fashioned. Add the club soda, garnish with a flower and a sprig of mint and serve.
