This Frozen Drink Tastes Just like the Tropical Trip We All Want

I wish to supply just a few fundamental information about myself:

• I generally like getting caught within the rain… when it is heat.
• I’m not into yoga (although I was).
• I am fairly positive I’ve half a mind. Possibly even a bit extra.
• Making love at midnight? My schedule is versatile, for positive.
• And sure, I do certainly like piña coladas. No less than, I like good ones.

These are vital solutions to vital life questions. What’s not answered although is how to make a superb piña colada. It is tough for a pair causes. The primary is that piña coladas require substances which might be extremely variable in high quality, which implies it is tough to create a recipe that yields a constant consequence. The second is that it is a frozen drink, and all frozen drinks share the same downside: How do you chill the drink down with sufficient ice to make it slushy with out overly diluting it within the course of?

Most recipes clear up the primary downside in essentially the most un-delicious of the way, calling for canned substances like pineapple juice and Coco Lopez, which, whereas not nice within the taste division, are extraordinarily constant. They might not make one of the best piña colada, however they’re going to make a reliably okay one.

I have been taking part in with options to this, and have provide you with some solutions, which I will overview on an ingredient-by-ingredient foundation.

The Rum: Choose Your Favourite

Let’s begin with the booze. I will be trustworthy—that is the part that pursuits me the least. Not as a result of I do not care concerning the rum, however as a result of I feel most of us at dwelling are going to make the drink throughout the limitations of our dwelling bar.

In the event you take a look at among the piña colada recipes from prime bartenders, you will typically discover that they wish to mix particular rums in an effort to nail their most good model of the drink. However bartenders have the posh of gaining access to a number of bottles of the stuff directly. At dwelling, we use what we have, restock after we can, and that is it. Recipes that decision for mixing three completely different rums may fit at a flowery cocktail bar, but it surely’s simply not a practical possibility for the remainder of us.

My feeling is that you may make a superb piña colada with many sorts of rum, whether or not it is white, aged, or some mixture; every brings its personal character to the occasion. Use no matter you’ve—I promise you will prefer it. One factor that’s vital: add sufficient so you possibly can style it. I like a roughly 2.5-ounce pour for a single serving of the drink.

The Pineapple: Use Recent or Canned Pineapple

Pineapple is, I feel, one of many trickier components of a piña colada, as a result of whereas recent juice and/or fruit is often higher, pineapples can range wildly when it comes to their ripeness, sweetness, and acidity. In the event you make the drink with totally recent fruit, you are extra prone to should tinker with different elements just like the sugar and lime juice to dial in on the proper stability of candy and tart. That may be tough for lots of parents at dwelling, because it requires making on-the-spot changes—generally drastic ones if the pineapple is a dud—with every new batch. No marvel most recipes simply name for a can of Dole.

I experimented with a handful of choices, together with utilizing solely recent pineapple, canned pineapple juice, and canned pineapple chunks, each alone and together with one another.

My closing recipe provides a pair choices: recent pineapple chunks, or canned pineapple chunks together with a few of their juices.

When ripe, the recent pineapple is one of the best tasting, so if you will get your fingers on a really ripe specimen, that is the way in which to go. If you cannot, I discovered that the chunks of canned pineapple ship a greater pineapple taste than canned juice alone.

The Coconut: Use Unsweetened Coconut Cream

There is a respectable argument to be made for Coco Lopez, the canned, ultra-sweet coconut cream. Certain, it tastes like tanning oil, but it surely’s virtually change into the drink’s calling card. There’s actual nostalgia related to that. However ultimately, as a lot as I can recognize and sometimes take pleasure in what it brings to a piña colada, it tastes like tanning oil. I would like my recipe to style like coconut. Actual coconut.

I suppose I may have insisted on an elaborate sub-recipe for turning a recent coconut into coconut purée, however piña coladas are speculated to be enjoyable, not work. I will depart the do-it-yourself purées to the bartenders who’ve time to do this. Far simpler is to open a can of unsweetened coconut cream, which is thicker and extra concentrated than coconut milk.

The Ice: Use Much less

Ice is a difficult however vital ingredient in any frozen drink as a result of the extra you add, the colder and slushier the drink will get, but it surely additionally will get extra diluted. Add too little, and your piña colada is chilly however not frozen. Add an excessive amount of and your drink is frozen, however its style pales compared to what it may very well be, like a reminiscence of a visit to Puerto Rico you took 10 years in the past in comparison with being on the island within the flesh. It may be a frustratingly tough stability to strike, and at occasions it seems like there isn’t any candy spot.

However 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 lower down on the ice? I may get an extremely slushy, full-on tropically flavored drink with out having so as to add as a lot water within the type of ice.

It is so simple as shoving a bottle of rum within the freezer, and pre-batching the remainder of the substances and placing them in to freeze as nicely. Due to its excessive alcohol content material, the rum will not freeze, however it is going to be chilly sufficient that it will not heat the opposite elements up whenever you combine all the pieces collectively. Mixed with the fiber within the chunks of precise pineapple (versus simply plain juice), the result’s a a lot thicker and slushier piña colada.

The remaining is easy: throw all of it in a blender, pour it right into a glass, and… do not forget the little paper umbrella. You actually do want a type of.

July 2017

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