Post #618174 by TikiTomD on Wed, Dec 21, 2011 1:25 PM

In this 1920 Frederick O’Brien book review of Richard Curles’ Wanderings: A Book of Travel and Reminiscence, we get another colorful description of the ubiquity, ingredients and deadly effects of Dr. Funk’s namesake cocktail...

New York Times July 18, 1920

Mr. Bali Hai at an earlier post in this thread cited an excerpt from Frederick O’Brien’s travel book, Mystic Isles of the South Seas. I’d recommend this as reading for those who might enjoy an escape to a Polynesian paradise of an earlier era (a good fit for some of us). It was originally published in 1921 and is freely available online through Project Gutenberg with this stipulation:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.net.

It’s also available as a download for a buck or two from Barnes and Noble, iTunes, etc.

Here is an excerpt of the foreword...

In Chapter 6, O’Brien relates his experiences in Cercle Bougainville, one of the two social clubs of the time in Papeete, Tahiti. Here he recounts his acquaintance with a certain cocktail. Though Mr. Bali Hai’s earlier post included the key part about the recipe, I’ve expanded it a bit so you can see what Paul Gauguin was stated to have said about Dr. Funk and his drink...

-Tom