The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of Piña Colada

Piña Colada (“strained pineapple”) is a frozen drink made of light rum, pineapple, and pre-sweetened coconut cream, first concocted in Puerto Rico in the mid-1950s or early 1960s. It is considered the signature drink of that island.

Piña colada was a traditional Cuban drink—strained, sweetened pineapple juice, sometimes with coconut water. Beginning in the 1930s, there were even piña colada stands in cities around the United States, selling a blended version of the drink, made with the richer coconut milk. While both of these were generally nonalcoholic, at least one American journalist suggested the obvious, that the standard pineapple-coconut drink might easily be turned into a “grand rum cocktail” (this was in 1944), and indeed the Cuban version is sometimes found spiked with rum, though always with other added ingredients. But not until the late 1960s did the alcoholic version become the default one, and then it came as a Puerto Rican import.

The drink’s creation relied on the introduction in 1949 of Coco Lopez, a canned, sweetened, and emulsified cream of coconut concentrate, developed under the aegis of Puerto Rico’s postwar Bootstraps Program for economic development. The Puerto Rican Piña Colada is not documented until sixteen years later, however, which leaves room for two divergent genesis tales. One purports that bartender Ramon Marrero “Monchito” Perez of the Caribe Hilton in San Juan (another Bootstraps project) came up with it in 1954. The other assigns it to the great, and peripatetic, Argentine bartender Ramon Porta Mingot (1905–1974), then working as head bartender at San Juan’s Barrachina restaurant, in 1963. Unfortunately, Barrachina is mentioned several times in the press as a new restaurant in 1965. On the other hand, while numerous of the Caribe Hilton’s recipes appear in tourism ads and travelers’ accounts of the 1950s and early 1960s, some with Coco Lopez, some with pineapple, none put the two together. While this does not invalidate Perez’s claim, it does at the very least call the timing into question. See Porta Mingot, Ramón “Raymond”.

In any case the new, alcoholic Piña Colada hit big in 1968 and went on to be consumed widely across North America in the 1970s when sweet tropical drinks were ascendant, and then around the world. (Because of its origins in Puerto Rico rather than faux-tropical stateside bars, the Piña Colada is not strictly considered a tiki drink but a close relation that shares a reliance on rum and fruit juices.) Reflecting its popularity, Puerto Rico declared the Piña Colada its national drink in 1978. The Piña Colada experienced another boost in popularity following Rupert Holmes’s 1979 musical hit “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” which included the refrain “If you like Piña Coladas / And getting caught in the rain.” The high-calorie drink became less ubiquitous in the more health-conscious 1980s and 1990s but remained on many cocktail lists, where it continues to appeal to drinkers who find small appeal in the assertive taste of hard liquor.

Recipe: Combine in blender: 60 ml white Puerto Rican rum, 120 ml fresh (or at least unsweetened) pineapple juice, 30 ml Coco Lopez or other coconut cream, and 250 ml crushed ice. Blend and serve in tall Collins with cherry garnish. Monchito Perez’s recipe from the 1980s calls for 180 ml pineapple juice and adds 30 ml heavy cream.

Piña Colada

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