Piña Colada
Boozier, less creamy old style of piña colada along with a creamy modern version
City/Region: Cuba | Puerto Rico | London
Time Period: 1920s, 1976
There are several claims as to who invented the piña colada. Was it a bartender at the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico in 1954? Was it a bartender at the Barrachina, another bar in Puerto Rico, in 1963? Or was it the pirate Roberto Confresi, who is said to have kept his crew happy with a mixture of rum, pineapple, and coconut all the way back in the early 1800s?
While we can’t know for sure who created the piña colada, at least as we know it in its modern state, we do know that a nonalcoholic piña colada was being served in Cuba in the 1920s, and by the 1950s, it also included rum.
Cream of coconut, a key ingredient that makes a modern piña colada creamy and sweet, was invented in 1948, and those earlier versions used either coconut milk or didn’t have coconut at all (imagine!). The historical recipe here first appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1976, though it hearkens back to what those earlier pre-cream-of-coconut piña coladas were like.
“PINA COLADA.
3 oz. Rum
3 tablespoons Coconut Milk
3 tablespoons Crushed Pineapple
Place in blender with two cups of crushed ice and blend at high speed for a short time. Strain into collins glass and serve with straw.”
Ingredients:
1976 Version
- 3 ounces rum, I used Bacardi white
- 3 tablespoons coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons crushed pineapple
- 2 cups crushed ice
Caribe Hilton’s Version
- 2 ounces rum, I used Bacardi white
- 1 ounce heavy cream
- 1 ounce cream of coconut*
- 6 ounces pineapple juice
- 1/2 cup crushed ice
*Be sure to get the kind that’s sweetened and made for cocktails, not the canned unsweetened kind that you might use for baking.
Instructions:
- For the 1976 version: Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend. The original recipe says to strain it, but that didn’t work out great for me, so I enjoyed it unstrained. Either way, pour it into a glass and serve it forth with a straw.
- For the Caribe Hilton’s version: Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend. Pour into a glass and serve it forth with a straw.