Piña Colada
A Piña Colada is white rum, pineapple and cream of coconut blended with ice: 50ml white rum, 50ml fresh pineapple juice and 30ml cream of coconut, blended for 10 to 15 seconds with a cup of crushed ice and poured into a hurricane glass, with a pineapple wedge and a cherry. The measures are the IBA’s own. A few drops of lime are optional, to correct a sweet batch. The Caribe Hilton in San Juan credits its bartender Ramón “Monchito” Marrero with the drink in 1954. It depends on Coco López, the sweetened cream of coconut Ramón López Irizarry developed in the late 1940s. There are rivals: Ricardo García, also at the Caribe Hilton, claimed 1953, and the Barrachina restaurant names Ramón Portas Mingot in 1963. Puerto Rico made it the island’s official drink in 1978. Cream of coconut is the ingredient that decides it: thick, sweet and rich in fat, never coconut milk. Each one carries about 2.0 UK units.
Glassware: Hurricane Glass
Garnish: Pineapple wedge and Maraschino cherry
Ingredients
50ml
A clean white rum at 40% ABV, as the IBA gives it. It lets the pineapple and coconut lead. Splitting it with an aged rum makes a deeper, darker drink.
50ml
Pressed the same day, or four slices of fresh pineapple blended in. At 50ml it matches the rum, so the drink tastes of rum as well as fruit. Juice from concentrate tastes cooked here.
30ml
Sweetened coconut cream, sold in tins; Coco López is the brand the drink was first made with, by most accounts. It is the drink’s sugar and its body at once. Coconut milk is unsweetened and thin, and coconut cream for cooking is unsweetened too, so neither works.
A few drops
Optional, a few drops. The IBA does not list it as an ingredient, noting only that lime was historically added to taste. Use it to correct a cream of coconut that is too sweet, and leave it out otherwise.
Instructions
Shake the tin of cream of coconut, then add the rum, pineapple juice and cream of coconut to a blender.
Add a cup of crushed ice.
Blend for 10 to 15 seconds, until smooth but still thick.
Taste, and add a few drops of lime juice only if it is too sweet.
Pour into a hurricane glass, garnish with a pineapple wedge and a cherry, and serve with a straw.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Shake the tin of cream of coconut before opening it. It separates in storage, and pouring from the top gives you the fat without the sugar and body underneath, which is why some Piña Coladas come out greasy. Blend for 10 to 15 seconds and stop while the drink is still thick. Longer, and the ice melts into it and the texture goes thin. Use pressed pineapple juice, or four slices of fresh pineapple blended in, as the IBA allows. Juice from a carton tastes cooked beside fresh fruit.
Behind the Piña Colada
Flavour Profile
Three Claims and One Tin
The Caribe Hilton in San Juan says its bartender Ramón “Monchito” Marrero created the Piña Colada in 1954, and that is the claim most often repeated. Ricardo García, a Spaniard who also worked at the hotel, said he made it in 1953. The Barrachina restaurant in Old San Juan says Ramón Portas Mingot created it there in 1963.
The tin matters more than the dispute. In the late 1940s Ramón López Irizarry, at the University of Puerto Rico, developed a sweetened coconut cream in his laboratory and sold it as Coco López. Without a sweetened coconut cream on the shelf, the drink as it is made now could not exist. In 1978 Puerto Rico made the Piña Colada its official drink.
Cream of Coconut
Cream of coconut is coconut cream cooked with sugar until it is thick. At 30ml it gives the drink sugar and fat at once, and the fat is what makes a Piña Colada creamy instead of merely sweet.
The substitutes fail in different directions. Coconut milk is thin and unsweetened. Coconut syrup is sugar without the fat. Coconut cream sold for cooking has the fat but no sugar, and adding syrup to it rarely tastes right. An opened tin lasts only a few days, chilled.
The IBA Measures
The Piña Colada and its relations
Piña Colada (IBA, and ours)
- Rum
- 50ml white rum
- Pineapple
- 50ml juice
- Coconut
- 30ml cream of coconut
- Other
- Optional drops of lime
Painkiller (ours)
- Rum
- 60ml Pusser’s Rum
- Pineapple
- 120ml juice
- Coconut
- 30ml cream of coconut
- Other
- 30ml orange juice
Piña colada, as Travel magazine described it in 1922
- Rum
- Rum
- Pineapple
- Juice
- Coconut
- None
- Other
- Sugar, lime and ice
| Drink | Rum | Pineapple | Coconut | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piña Colada (IBA, and ours) | 50ml white rum | 50ml juice | 30ml cream of coconut | Optional drops of lime |
| Painkiller (ours) | 60ml Pusser’s Rum | 120ml juice | 30ml cream of coconut | 30ml orange juice |
| Piña colada, as Travel magazine described it in 1922 | Rum | Juice | None | Sugar, lime and ice |
Equal measures of rum and pineapple make a drier, more spirited drink than most bar versions, which pour far more juice. The Painkiller shows what happens when the juice is more than doubled and orange goes in: a longer, softer drink on the same coconut base.
Blend Briefly
Ten to fifteen seconds in the blender, with about a cup of crushed ice, is enough. The drink should come out smooth and thick enough to hold a straw upright. Longer, and the ice melts into it and the coconut thins out.
Without a blender, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds with cubed ice and strain over crushed ice. That version is lighter and silkier, and some prefer it.
Why It Got a Bad Name
Pre-mixes, slush machines and syrups made most people’s first Piña Colada thin and sugary. None of that is in the recipe. Three ingredients in IBA proportion, with fresh pineapple and a shaken tin, give a cold, creamy drink in which the rum still comes through.
How Strong It Is
With 50ml of white rum at 40% ABV, a Piña Colada holds about 2.0 UK units. It drinks like a pudding and goes fast, so count it as two pub measures.
Make it at home
The Spirit
White RumWhite rum is clear rum, usually bottled at 40% ABV, either unaged or rested in oak and then charcoal-filtered back to clear. It is the light, dry rum of the Daiquiri, the Mojito and the Cuba Libre, and the rum most of our recipes mean when they want rum that sits under lime rather than over it.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Piña Colada?
Cream of coconut or coconut milk?
Who invented the Piña Colada?
How strong is a Piña Colada?
Can I make a Piña Colada without a blender?
What does piña colada mean?
Can I use fresh pineapple instead of juice?
You Might Also Like
Painkiller
A Painkiller is 60ml of Pusser’s Rum, 120ml of pineapple juice, 30ml of fresh orange juice and 30ml of cream of coconut, given a hard 10 to 12 second shake and strained onto cubed ice in a tiki mug or a big glass, with fresh nutmeg grated on top. About 2.4 UK units. Cream of coconut is coconut and sugar, usually with no dairy, but check the label. The name belongs to Pusser’s. The company holds Painkiller as a trade mark in the United States, and the recipe here is its own: four parts pineapple, one of cream of coconut and one of orange, with Pusser’s to suit. In 2011 it sued a New York bar called Painkiller, which settled by renaming itself PKNY and agreeing to serve the drink only with Pusser’s. Pusser’s traces the drink to Daphne Henderson’s Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands.
Bahama Mama
A Bahama Mama is a long rum punch: 30ml dark rum, 30ml coconut rum and 15ml overproof rum, with 60ml each of pineapple and orange juice, 15ml fresh lime juice and 15ml grenadine, shaken and strained over crushed ice in a hurricane glass. It tastes of coconut, pineapple and orange, and it is stronger than any of that suggests. Its history is loose. The version most often credited to a named bartender is a coffee-liqueur drink usually attributed to Oswald “Slade” Greenslade in Nassau in the early 1960s. The fruit-and-coconut punch most bars now pour has no documented creator. A glass holds about 2.8 UK units. Squeeze the citrus the same day and use a grenadine made from pomegranate: in a drink that is mostly juice, the juice decides the result.
Rum Punch
Rum Punch follows the old rhyme, one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak, and ours keeps it to the letter in 15ml parts: 15ml fresh lime juice; 15ml grenadine and 15ml demerara syrup; 30ml aged rum and 15ml dark rum; 30ml each of fresh orange and pineapple juice. Two dashes of Angostura go in as well. Shake it hard and pour it over fresh ice in a highball, then top it with an orange slice and grated nutmeg. Punch came to Britain from India with East India Company men, and the word appears in English in 1632. The rhyme has more than one printed form. Read it as a ratio: islands, bars and families fill each part differently, and the weak part can be juice, tea or plain water. Multiply the parts by the number of guests and the same proportions fill a bowl. A glass holds about 1.9 UK units.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 11 October 2026