In the long American tradition of reinvention, two spirits entrepreneurs walking through a Florida state park stumbled upon a forgotten 1903 elixir and chose to resurrect it — not as nostalgia for its own sake, but as an act of cultural excavation. Munyon's Paw-Paw, once a papaya-based cure-all laced with alcohol and THC, has returned as a craft aperitif, stripped of its cannabis origins but faithful to its botanical soul. It is a reminder that history does not always require scholars to preserve it — sometimes it only needs someone willing to pick up an old bottle and ask what it once meant.
Century-Old 'Cure-All' Elixir Returns: Munyon's Paw-Paw Revived Without THC
That package almost tells the story
Mark
So they just found this bottle in a state park? That's the whole origin story?
Mimi
That's how it started, yes. Colucci was visiting the park, saw the exhibit about Dr. Munyon, and it sparked something. He and Massey had both worked in spirits for years, so they had the knowledge to actually do something with what they'd found.
Luke
But the real question is: how much of the original formula did they actually recover? They tasted a 123-year-old bottle. That tells you almost nothing about what it was supposed to taste like fresh.
Mimi
Fair point. They worked with a historian and obtained an original bottle, but you're right—they couldn't reverse-engineer it perfectly. They used the papaya base and the general botanical profile as their guide.
Mark
And they removed the THC deliberately?
Mimi
Yes. The original had it; the new version doesn't. That's a business decision as much as anything else—THC products have their own regulatory landscape now.
Luke
So they're not really reviving the original. They're creating something inspired by it, using the story as the actual product.
Mimi
That's a fair way to put it. The story is part of what they're selling, absolutely. But the drink itself is real—14 ingredients, 20 percent ABV, made with a Miami distiller.
Mark
Do we know if it's actually good?
Luke
The source doesn't say. No tasting notes, no reviews. We know what's in it and what it costs to make, but not whether anyone actually wants to drink it.
Mimi
That's the thing about a revival like this—the historical angle is the hook, but the product has to stand on its own eventually.
Mark
What happens if it doesn't sell?
Mimi
Then it becomes another forgotten brand. But Colucci and Massey seem to believe the nostalgia market is real right now.
Luke
It is real. The question is whether it's real enough to sustain a product that costs more than a standard aperitif because of its story.
Le Pouls
- A chance encounter with a century-old bottle in a beach park exhibit set two industry veterans on a path to revive one of America's most obscure forgotten brands.
- The original formula — fermented papaya, alcohol, and THC — reflected an era when the boundary between medicine and intoxicant was openly, legally blurred.
- To bring it back, the founders had to make a defining choice: honor the history while removing the cannabis component that modern regulation and market positioning could not accommodate.
- Working with a Miami craft distiller, they rebuilt the elixir from 14 natural ingredients, replicating even the antique bottle to let the packaging carry the weight of the story.
- Launched in 2023, the revived Munyon's Paw-Paw is now positioned at the intersection of heritage marketing and the booming craft spirits market, betting that authenticity is its sharpest competitive edge.
In the long American tradition of reinvention, two spirits entrepreneurs walking through a Florida state park stumbled upon a forgotten 1903 elixir and chose to resurrect it — not as nostalgia for its own sake, but as an act of cultural excavation. Munyon's Paw-Paw, once a papaya-based cure-all laced with alcohol and THC, has returned as a craft aperitif, stripped of its cannabis origins but faithful to its botanical soul. It is a reminder that history does not always require scholars to preserve it — sometimes it only needs someone willing to pick up an old bottle and ask what it once meant.
Joe Colucci was passing through John D. MacArthur Beach State Park in Palm Beach County when an antique bottle caught his eye — a relic from 1903 bearing the name of Dr. James Munyon, a once-prominent entrepreneur who had owned a nearby island and built a fortune selling homeopathic remedies. The bottle held the ghost of Munyon's Paw-Paw, a papaya-based elixir that had disappeared from American shelves more than a century ago. Colucci called his colleague Paul Massey the same day.
Munyon had marketed his Paw-Paw as a cure-all in an era when such claims were commonplace and largely unregulated. The formula was built on fermented papaya and alcohol — and also contained THC, which was legal and unremarkable in American apothecaries before federal prohibition arrived. Colucci and Massey dug into the history, eventually traveling to Pennsylvania to consult a historian and obtaining an original bottle that still held some of its ancient contents. They tasted it. Colucci described the experience with understated humor.
The two spirits veterans resolved to bring Munyon's Paw-Paw back, but without the cannabis. Partnering with a Miami craft distiller, they built a modern aperitif at 20 percent ABV, anchored by papaya and rounded out with orange, grapefruit, hibiscus, and other botanicals said to have grown on Munyon's island. The bottle was designed as a faithful replica of the original — a deliberate choice, because for Colucci and Massey, the vessel itself tells the story.
Launched in 2023, the revived elixir is now a cocktail ingredient rather than a medicinal tonic, finding its way into drinks like the Palm Beach Spritz. But its founders frame the project as something beyond commerce — a form of preservation, returning a genuine piece of American entrepreneurial history from the archive to the bar cart at a moment when consumers seem increasingly hungry for stories that were discovered rather than invented.
Joe Colucci was walking through John D. MacArthur Beach State Park in Palm Beach County one afternoon when he spotted something that stopped him: an antique bottle from 1903, displayed in an exhibit about Dr. James Munyon, a businessman who once owned an island nearby. The bottle held the remnants of Munyon's Paw-Paw, a papaya-based elixir that had vanished from American shelves more than a century earlier. Colucci, who lives in Jupiter, Florida, called his longtime colleague Paul Massey that day. Neither man knew it yet, but they were about to resurrect a forgotten chapter of American business history.
Munyon himself was an entrepreneur who built a substantial fortune in the early 1900s by selling homeopathic remedies across the country. His Paw-Paw elixir was marketed as a cure-all—the kind of broad medicinal claim that was common in that era, when the line between tonic and medicine was blurry at best. The original formula contained fermented papaya and alcohol. It also contained something else: THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis. This was not unusual for the time; cannabis-infused tonics were legal and widely available in American drugstores and apothecaries before federal prohibition took hold.
Colucci and Massey began researching Munyon's life and the drink's origins. They traveled to Pennsylvania to meet with a historian studying the businessman and eventually obtained an original bottle—one that still contained some of the century-old liquid inside. They tasted it. "Wasn't exactly still fresh, to say the least," Colucci said later, with the dry humor of someone who had just sampled something that had been sitting in a bottle for 123 years.
The two spirits industry veterans decided to bring Munyon's Paw-Paw back to market, but with a crucial modification. Working with a craft distiller in Miami, they developed a modern version that kept the papaya base and the botanical complexity of the original but removed the THC. The new formulation, launched in 2023, is a 20 percent alcohol-by-volume aperitif built around 14 natural ingredients: papaya, orange, grapefruit, hibiscus, and others that the founders say were once cultivated on Munyon's island. The bottle itself is a replica of the original, a design choice that Colucci and Massey saw as essential to the product's identity. "When we saw the original bottle, we thought, 'Man, we could just run with that,'" Colucci explained. "That package almost tells the story."
For Colucci and Massey, this is not simply another craft spirit entering a crowded market. They see it as an act of preservation—a way to keep alive a piece of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship that would otherwise remain buried in state park displays and historical archives. The original Munyon's Paw-Paw was sold as medicine, a product meant to heal. The modern version is frankly recreational, designed to be mixed into cocktails like the Palm Beach Spritz, made with equal parts Munyon's Paw-Paw, prosecco, and grapefruit soda. But both versions share the same origin story: a businessman with a vision, a formula that worked, and a brand that lasted long enough to be worth remembering. In an era when consumers seem hungry for authenticity and historical narrative, Munyon's Paw-Paw represents something increasingly rare—a genuine American story, not invented for marketing purposes but excavated from the ground and given new life.
Citations marquantes
Wasn't exactly still fresh, to say the least— Joe Colucci, describing the taste of the 123-year-old original formula
Americans just want to hear a great piece of U.S. history, and we're bringing that back with our product— Paul Massey, co-founder of the revived brand
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