The Piña Colada has a bad reputation it doesn't deserve. The version most people know comes out of a slushie machine with bottom-shelf rum, and it tastes like sunscreen. Made with real cream of coconut, fresh pineapple juice, and a rum with some character, it's one of the best drinks in the world, and the rum is where most of the difference lives: coconut and pineapple are rich, so the rum has to be either clean and dry enough to cut through or funky enough to show up. Here's the Puerto Rican story, the recipe, and the rums in stock that make it right.
Shop all rum in stock at Chips Liquor
Where the Piña Colada Comes From
It's Puerto Rico's national drink, declared so in 1978, and the Caribe Hilton in San Juan has the strongest claim to inventing it: bartender Ramón "Monchito" Marrero is said to have created it there in 1954 after months of testing. The key ingredient that made it possible was Coco López, the canned cream of coconut invented in Puerto Rico in the late 1940s, which is why the drink didn't exist before then and why the original was built on Puerto Rican white rum. Everything that follows is a variation on that.
The Recipe
- 2 oz rum
- 1 1/2 oz cream of coconut (Coco López)
- 3 oz pineapple juice
- 1/2 oz fresh lime juice (optional, but it keeps the drink from going flat)
- 1 cup ice
Blend until smooth and pour into a tall glass; garnish with a pineapple wedge. For a shaken version, skip the blender, shake hard with ice, and strain over crushed ice. Cream of coconut is sweetened and thick; coconut milk and coconut cream from the baking aisle are not the same thing and the drink won't work with them. Fresh or not-from-concentrate pineapple juice makes a bigger difference than any other swap.
The Best Rums for a Piña Colada
Havana Club Añejo Blanco (the Puerto Rican original)
Puerto Rican column rum aged in ex-bourbon oak and charcoal-filtered clear, 40% ABV, made by Bacardí from the recipe the Arechabala family carried out of Cuba. Clean, dry, a hint of vanilla, under $20. This is the rum style the drink was invented with, and it makes the textbook version.
Flor de Caña 7 Year
An aged rum in a Piña Colada is the single biggest upgrade most people never try. Seven years in ex-bourbon oak in Nicaragua, no added sugar, and notably dry: butterscotch, cocoa, and toasted oak that turn the drink from a slushie into a dessert. Under $30, and one of the best-value aged rums on the shelf. The Flor de Caña 4 Year does the same job at $25 with a lighter touch.
Denizen Aged White
Three-year Trinidad column rum with a trace of Jamaican pot still, filtered clear, 40% ABV. Wine Enthusiast found lychee and coconut sweetness in it, which is exactly what you want here. Mix it or sip it; at this price it's the house white rum of a lot of good home bars.
Planteray Cut & Dry Coconut Rum
If you're going to use a coconut rum, use this one. Sun-dried Barbadian coconut infused into real pot-and-column rum at one whole coconut per liter, not flavored, not extract. Tastings.com gave it 96 points. Use it for the full 2 oz, or split it with a white rum for a Piña Colada that tastes like toasted coconut instead of candy.
Foursquare Probitas
Barbados pot-and-column rum blended with Hampden Jamaican pot still, unaged, no sugar, 47% ABV. The funk and the extra proof punch straight through the coconut. This is the Piña Colada for people who think they don't like Piña Coladas, and the one bartenders make for themselves.
Planteray Isle of Fiji
Fijian rum aged in ex-bourbon casks in the tropics, then in Cognac casks in France, 40% ABV. Vanilla fudge, honey, and ginger. Softer than Flor de Caña with more tropical fruit, and the house recipe on the bottle is a Fiji Splash with coconut water, so the pairing is obvious.
Wray & Nephew White Overproof (the float)
Jamaica's 63% ABV white overproof, all overripe banana and pineapple. Float half an ounce on top of a finished Piña Colada and the first sip is a different drink. Or use 1 oz as the entire rum portion for a Jamaican version with real heat.
Don Q Coco (the budget pick)
Puerto Rican rum aged a year, charcoal-filtered, and infused with coconut, bottled at 21% ABV for under $20. It's a step up from Malibu and nothing more, and it's fine for a pitcher at a pool party. Critics are split on it; we're including it because people ask.
Which to Pick
- The classic: Havana Club Añejo Blanco.
- Best overall: Flor de Caña 7.
- Toasted coconut: Cut & Dry.
- Funky: Probitas, or a Wray & Nephew float.
- Best value white: Denizen Aged White.
Shipping From Chips Liquor
Every bottle above is in stock at our Pacific Beach shop in San Diego and ships fast to most states. For more drinks from the same shelf, read our guides to the best rum for a Painkiller and the best rum for a Dark 'n' Stormy, or see our Planteray guide.