Easy Piña Colada! A summer staple, learn how to make piña coladas with traditional piña colada ingredients of rum, coconut, and pineapple. Grab your favorite tiki glass for this delicious blender drink!

Photography Credit: Elise Bauer

If you’re looking for a refreshing, sultry cocktail to highlight your next summer party, this piña colada is it.

You may associate a piña colada with laid-back poolside vacations, but the piña colada ingredients of rum, coconut, and pineapple is actually a pillar of the tiki drink canon.

VIDEO! How to Make Piña Coladas

Ingredients for Making Piña Coladas

Part of the charm of piña coladas is how easy they are to make:

RUM: Rum is the base alcohol. Choose a white rum for this cocktail, rather than the more strongly flavored aged rums. Mount Gay is a smooth and affordable option.

Rum is the base alcohol. Choose a white rum for this cocktail, rather than the more strongly flavored aged rums. Mount Gay is a smooth and affordable option. COCONUT: For the coconut component, use cream of coconut. Avoid coconut milk or coconut cream; “cream of coconut” is a different product. You’ll often find it near in the liquor section with the other mixers. My preferred brand is Coco Lopez.

For the coconut component, use cream of coconut. Avoid coconut milk or coconut cream; “cream of coconut” is a different product. You’ll often find it near in the liquor section with the other mixers. My preferred brand is Coco Lopez. PINEAPPLE: Pineapple enters the mix by way of pineapple juice and pineapple chunks . The chunks help make this blended drink thicker and frothier. If you cut your your pineapple yourself, freeze the chunks in a single layer on a baking sheet before using.

Pineapple enters the mix by way of . The chunks help make this blended drink thicker and frothier. If you cut your your pineapple yourself, freeze the chunks in a single layer on a baking sheet before using. THE FLOAT (optional): Last but not least, I like to add a splash of golden or añejo rum to the top of each glass just before serving. This rum floats on top of the drink and adds a more complex flavor to the drink.

The History of the Piña Colada

Quite a few bartenders and bars have claimed to have created the now famous piña colada over the years, but the drink’s true origins are a bit murky. There’s even evidence that traders in the 19th century mixed rum with coconut water and mashed pineapple for what would have been a sort of proto-piña!

In the end, though, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Because a piña colada is amazing.

Piña Coladas: Blended or Shaken?

By the way, there’s a misconception out there that a blended piña colada is actually a more recent, modernized version of the cocktail. In fact, the blended cocktail is the original, and the shaken piña colada the contemporary incarnation.

If you’d like to make a shaken piña colada for yourself, try shaking 1 1/2 ounces golden or añejo rum with 1-ounce coconut cream and 1-ounce pineapple juice, and pouring it over ice. A spritz of lime peel over the cocktail is a perfect finishing touch.

Blended or shaken, a piña colada truly can’t be beaten for its tropical flavor and efficiency in getting rum in your mouth.

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