The real Dr. Funk - Tiki Drinks and Food

T TikiTomD Grand Member (6 years) Flagler Beach, FL Joined: Sep 20, 2009 Posts: 700	T TikiTomD Posted posted on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 4:13 PM TropicDrinkBoy, quite a reasonable request, considering the title of this forum. I’ve been winding my way through Dr. Funk’s life story and the side trails connected to it, but I’ll put the final few posts about that on hold to cut to the chase on your question... The earliest known Dr. Funk cocktail recipe is that which has already been posted by Mr. Bali Hai from Frederick O’Brien’s 1921 book, Mystic Isles of the South Seas. Leilani Burgoyne’s paper from the University of Auckland is the most meticulously researched work on all things about Dr. Bernhard Funk, yet she could find nothing earlier among unpublished and published papers. I’ve made an extensive search myself, combing through both online and physical books, even the 1907 Cyclopedia of Samoa, with no better result. So, I circle back to that recipe given by Dr. Funk to Joseph, the steward at the Cercle Bougainville in Papeete, Tahiti about a century ago and recorded in Mystic Isles of the South Seas... Note that this recipe contained no rum at all. Here’s where O’Brien made it clear that it was to Joseph that Dr. Funk directly confided the recipe... The cocktail’s popularity was enhanced by the fact that a real physician had concocted it (from online copy of Mystic Isles of the South Seas)... Here are various other snippets about the cocktail in Mystic Isles of the South Seas... Among factors supporting the recipe as authentic are that it is contemporary to Dr. Funk’s lifetime and all the recorded details about the doctor himself are accurate. It’s almost 20 years after Mystic Isles of the South Seas was published that Dr. Funk appears next, in altered form... Beachbum Berry’s Intoxica! (page 32) has a Doctor Funk recipe cited as originating from Don the Beachcomber circa 1937. It adds dark rum to the mix and alters proportions. Absinthe (no longer legal) has been replaced by Pernod. Earlier in this thread, we saw where Trader Vic already had a dark rum and absinthe Dr. Funk cocktail on the menu of his Honolulu Trader Vic’s, circa 1940. -Tom [ Edited by: tikitomd 2012-04-10 16:40 ]

TropicDrinkBoy, quite a reasonable request, considering the title of this forum. I’ve been winding my way through Dr. Funk’s life story and the side trails connected to it, but I’ll put the final few posts about that on hold to cut to the chase on your question...

The earliest known Dr. Funk cocktail recipe is that which has already been posted by Mr. Bali Hai from Frederick O’Brien’s 1921 book, Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

Leilani Burgoyne’s paper from the University of Auckland is the most meticulously researched work on all things about Dr. Bernhard Funk, yet she could find nothing earlier among unpublished and published papers. I’ve made an extensive search myself, combing through both online and physical books, even the 1907 Cyclopedia of Samoa, with no better result. So, I circle back to that recipe given by Dr. Funk to Joseph, the steward at the Cercle Bougainville in Papeete, Tahiti about a century ago and recorded in Mystic Isles of the South Seas...

Note that this recipe contained no rum at all.

Here’s where O’Brien made it clear that it was to Joseph that Dr. Funk directly confided the recipe...

The cocktail’s popularity was enhanced by the fact that a real physician had concocted it (from online copy of Mystic Isles of the South Seas)...

Here are various other snippets about the cocktail in Mystic Isles of the South Seas...

Among factors supporting the recipe as authentic are that it is contemporary to Dr. Funk’s lifetime and all the recorded details about the doctor himself are accurate.

It’s almost 20 years after Mystic Isles of the South Seas was published that Dr. Funk appears next, in altered form...

Beachbum Berry’s Intoxica! (page 32) has a Doctor Funk recipe cited as originating from Don the Beachcomber circa 1937. It adds dark rum to the mix and alters proportions. Absinthe (no longer legal) has been replaced by Pernod.

Earlier in this thread, we saw where Trader Vic already had a dark rum and absinthe Dr. Funk cocktail on the menu of his Honolulu Trader Vic’s, circa 1940.

-Tom

[ Edited by: tikitomd 2012-04-10 16:40 ]

Post #631944 by TikiTomD on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 4:13 PM