Ultra-Tropical Piña Colada Recipe
Why It Works
- Freezing the ingredients first methodology you might per chance per chance even employ much less ice, leading to a extra flavorful, much less diluted drink.
- Ripe contemporary pineapple or canned pineapple chunks are extra flavorful than pineapple juice, plus their fiber helps thicken the drink.
- Coconut cream has a extra pure flavor than Coco Lopez.
- Measuring solids by weight provides you higher administration over the ingredient ratios.
I’d eradicate to give about a frequent facts about myself:
- I most ceaselessly like getting caught in the rain… when or not it is heat.
- I’m not into yoga (although I passe to be).
- I’m perfect-searching clear I even delight in half of a mind. Even maybe fairly of extra.
- Making treasure at nighttime? My schedule is flexible, for clear.
- And drag, I abolish indeed like piña coladas. On the very least, I love heavenly ones.
These are important solutions to important existence questions. What’s not answered although is how to develop a heavenly piña colada. It’s tricky for a couple reasons. The famous is that piña coladas require ingredients which would maybe per chance maybe be highly variable in quality, that methodology or not it is disturbing to develop a recipe that yields a relentless result. The second is that or not it is a frozen drink, and all frozen drinks share a a similar effort: How abolish you chill the drink down with ample ice to develop it slushy without overly diluting it in the contrivance?
Most recipes resolve the first effort in the most un-delicious of ways, calling for canned ingredients like pineapple juice and Coco Lopez, which, whereas not gigantic in the flavour division, are extraordinarily constant. They’d per chance even fair not develop the most effective piña colada, but they are going to develop a reliably okay one.
I’ve been playing with alternatives to this, and delight in advance up with some solutions, which I’m going to examine on an ingredient-by-ingredient basis.
The Rum: Take Your Favourite
Let’s originate with the booze. I’m going to be right—here’s the part that interests me the least. Not because I don’t care about the rum, but because I judge most of us at home are going to develop the drink at some stage in the obstacles of our home bar.
Whereas you happen to leer at among the piña colada recipes from top bartenders, you are going to in general peer that they eradicate to mix explicit rums to delight in the capacity to nail their most perfect version of the drink. Nonetheless bartenders delight in the plush of having compile admission to to some of bottles of the stuff without delay. At home, we employ what we delight in obtained, restock when we can, and that is it. Recipes that decision for blending three totally different rums would maybe per chance even fair work at a admire cocktail bar, but it completely’s staunch not a sensible option for the relaxation of us.
My feeling is that you just might per chance per chance even develop a heavenly piña colada with many forms of rum, whether or not or not it is white, habitual, or some mixture; each and every brings its own personality to the compile together. Employ whatever you might per chance per chance even fair delight in gotten—I promise you are going to love it. One part that’s important: add ample so that you just might per chance per chance even taste it. I love a roughly 2.5-ounce pour for a single serving of the drink.
The Pineapple: Employ Contemporary or Canned Pineapple
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Pineapple is, I judge, one in every of the trickier parts of a piña colada, because whereas contemporary juice and/or fruit is in general higher, pineapples can fluctuate wildly in terms of their ripeness, sweetness, and acidity. Whereas you happen to develop the drink with fully contemporary fruit, you are extra inclined to want to tinker with totally different parts just like the sugar and lime juice to dial in on the most effective steadiness of candy and tart. That can also be tricky for a good deal of folk at home, since it requires making on-the-put changes—most ceaselessly drastic ones if the pineapple is a dud—with each and every contemporary batch. No wonder most recipes staunch name for a can of Dole.
I experimented with a handful of alternatives, at the side of using only contemporary pineapple, canned pineapple juice, and canned pineapple chunks, each and every by myself and alongside with each and every totally different.
My final recipe provides a couple alternatives: contemporary pineapple chunks, or canned pineapple chunks alongside with some of their juices.
When ripe, the contemporary pineapple is the most effective tasting, so if you happen to would maybe per chance even compile your hands on a the truth is ripe specimen, that’s the most effective technique to head. Whereas you happen to can’t, I discovered that the chunks of canned pineapple bring a higher pineapple flavor than canned juice by myself.
The Coconut: Employ Unsweetened Coconut Cream
There might per chance be a legit argument to be made for Coco Lopez, the canned, extremely-candy coconut cream. Sure, it tastes like tanning oil, but it completely’s practically change into the drink’s calling card. There might per chance be right nostalgia linked to that. Nonetheless in the head, as powerful as I can admire and in general revel in what it brings to a piña colada, it tastes like tanning oil. I desire my recipe to taste like coconut. Genuine coconut.
I order I can delight in insisted on an elaborate sub-recipe for turning a recent coconut into coconut purée, but piña coladas are alleged to be fun, not work. I’m going to head away the selfmade purées to the bartenders who delight in time to abolish that. Method more uncomplicated is to launch a can of unsweetened coconut cream, which is thicker and extra concentrated than coconut milk.
The Ice: Employ Less
Ice is a not easy but foremost ingredient in any frozen drink since the extra you add, the chillier and slushier the drink will get, but it completely also will get extra diluted. Add too runt, and your piña colada is wintry but not frozen. Add too powerful and your drink is frozen, but its taste pales in comparison to what it’ll also very well be, like a memory of a day out to Puerto Rico you took 10 years ago in comparison with being on the island in the flesh. It in general is a frustratingly disturbing steadiness to strike, and every so ceaselessly it appears like there might per chance be not a candy put.
Nonetheless then I had an thought: What if I freeze my pineapple chunks and all the pieces else—the rum, the coconut cream, the extra splashes of lime juice and sugar—then decrease down on the ice? I would maybe per chance compile an extremely slushy, stout-on tropically flavored drink and not using a must add as powerful water in the delight in of ice.
It’s as easy as shoving a bottle of rum in the freezer, and pre-batching the relaxation of the ingredients and striking them in to freeze in addition. Attributable to its high alcohol jabber, the rum would maybe per chance even not freeze, but this might per chance well be wintry ample that it’ll also not heat totally different parts up if you happen to mix all the pieces together. Blended with the fiber in the chunks of tangible pineapple (moreover staunch easy juice), the head result is a magnificent thicker and slushier piña colada.
The comfort is easy: throw it all in a blender, pour it correct into a pitcher, and… bear in mind the runt paper umbrella. You the truth is abolish desire a kind of.
July 2017
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5 oz (140g) very ripe peeled and cored contemporary pineapple, frozen pineapple, or drained canned pineapple chunks (leer notes)
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1 3/4 oz (50ml) unsweetened coconut cream, shaken or stirred well to consist of fleshy
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1 ounce (30ml) easy syrup (leer notes)
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3/4 to 1 ounce (20 to 30ml) contemporary juice from 1 lime
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2 1/2 oz (75ml) white or gold rum, stored in freezer except freezer-wintry
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4 oz (115g) ice cubes
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Pineapple gash and/or maraschino cherry, for garnish
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Paper umbrella and straw, for serving (optionally available)
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In an airtight plastic container, combine pineapple, coconut cream, easy syrup, and 3/4 ounce lime juice, and switch to freezer except frozen, not not as much as 1 hour (the sugar in the mixture would maybe per chance even fair stop it from freezing solid; here’s okay).
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In a blender, combine frozen pineapple mixture with ice-wintry rum and ice and mix except thick and slushy. Style, then mix in the final 1/4 ounce lime juice, if desired. Pour correct into a gigantic glass, garnish with pineapple and/or a cherry, and lend a hand, with or and not using a paper umbrella and straw.
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Whereas you happen to will delight in to develop a couple of drinks, you might per chance per chance even pre-batch as much as a double recipe (a blender would maybe per chance even fair not own powerful bigger than that without recount) in a single container, then divide after blending; for bigger than 2 drinks, employ separate containers to lift extra servings.
Special Tools
Blender
Notes
Simplest employ contemporary pineapple if you happen to would maybe per chance even catch a the truth is ripe and candy fruit; in any other case frozen or canned shall be higher.
To develop easy syrup, combine equal volumes of granulated sugar and water, then budge except the sugar is entirely dissolved; extra easy syrup will also be refrigerated in an airtight container for as much as 1 month.
In discovering-Ahead and Storage
The pre-batched frozen ingredients will also be assembled and stored in the freezer as much as 12 hours sooner than serving.
Learn Extra
- 15 Frozen-Cocktail Recipes Worth the Mind Freeze
- Boozy Piña Colada Popsicles Recipe