Recipes

Piña Colada

With its jaunty paper umbrellas and tropical fruits, the Piña Colada has transportive powers: One sip of the slushy cocktail and you can almost feel the sand in your toes and all the workaday woes slipping away in the balmy island breezes. It’s a beach vacation in a glass. We made this one with just the right balance of rum and unsweetened coconut milk — so the fruity-sweet pineapple can shine. It’s also got a little coconut cream in it, so it’s super thick, like a very luxe, mildly boozy smoothie.

We like our Piña Coladas super cold, so we frost our fancy hurricane glasses in the freezer. And, once we’ve poured the blended cocktail into them, we slide them right back into the ice box for 45 minutes or so — long enough for the slush to thicken up, but not so long that it crystalizes. Take that, SoCal summer!

Think of this as a solid base recipe. If you like it sweeter, add more sugar; rummier, add more rum. And if you’ve got kiddos, you can turn it into a mocktail — hold the booze, double the paper umbrellas.

Servings: 4

Ingredients

16 oz frozen pineapple

½ cup full-fat unsweetened coconut milk

¼ cup canned unsweetened coconut cream

6 oz white rum

2 Tbsp lime juice

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

2 cups ice

Pineapple wedges and paper umbrellas, for serving

Directions

  1. Chill 4 serving glasses in the freezer for about 1 hour before mixing the ingredients together.

  2. In a blender, combine the pineapple, coconut milk, coconut cream, rum, lime juice, sugar, and ice. Blend until completely smooth, about 1 minute.

  3. Divide the piña colada among the glasses, and then transfer the glasses to the freezer for about 45 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened.

  4. Garnish each glass with a pineapple wedge and paper umbrella. Enjoy immediately.

Calculate nutrition information for this recipe.