Piña Verde

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, as Difford’s Guide reports; Difford’s adds that Marrero himself claimed 15 August 1952. It depends on Coco López, the sweetened cream of coconut Ramón López Irizarry developed in 1949, by Imbibe’s account. There are rivals: Ricardo García, also at the Caribe Hilton, claims to have invented it, with 1954 the year Punch gives, and the Barrachina restaurant, by its own account, names Ramón Portas Mingot in 1963. Punch says the Piña Colada was declared Puerto Rico’s national 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.

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. Pusser’s prints the name with the registered symbol on its own Painkiller page, and the Oxford Companion says the company owns the trademark for the Pusser’s Painkiller cocktail. The recipe here is its own: four parts pineapple, one of cream of coconut and one of orange, with Pusser’s to suit. Difford’s Guide says it trademarked the name in the United States and the UK in 2003 and in 2010 forced a New York bar called Painkiller to rename itself PKNY. Pusser’s traces the drink to Daphne Henderson’s Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands.

Last Word

A Last Word is 22.5ml each of gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and fresh lime juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick & Nora or coupe. About 2.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the cherry or lime twist is ours. The Oxford Companion says the drink first appears in print in the Detroit Athletic Club News in 1916, on a menu at 35 cents, a high price then. Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up of 1951 prints the recipe, quoting a club source who says Frank Fogarty, a vaudeville monologist, introduced it there about thirty years earlier. In 2003 Murray Stenson put it on the menu at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, from where it spread, the Companion says. Four strong flavours at equal volume, and none takes over. Chartreuse brings herbs and heat, maraschino cherry and a bitter almond edge, lime the acid, and gin holds them together.

Jungle Bird

A Jungle Bird is 45ml of blackstrap rum, 22.5ml of Campari, 45ml of fresh pineapple juice, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 15ml of demerara syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a double rocks glass, with a pineapple wedge. About 2.4 UK units. These are the IBA’s measures. It is credited to Jeffrey Ong, beverage manager at the Aviary Bar of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, where it was poured as a welcome drink for guests; Difford’s Guide dates it to the hotel’s opening on 6 July 1973. The recipe reached print in John J. Poister’s New American Bartender’s Guide in 1989. Campari is what sets it apart. Pineapple has the body and sugar to carry the bitterness, and a heavy rum underneath holds both.