Using https://github.com/couchbase/couchnode @v.1.2.4
Attempting to connect to CouchBase server using the code in the README
var couchbase = re
The "solution" was to use the "Developer Preview" of Couchbase
npm install couchbase@2.0.0-dp1
Then all the examples on https://github.com/couchbase/couchnode worked as expected.
See: http://blog.couchbase.com/nodejs-sdk-200-developer-preview