Piña Colada
The creation of this often maligned but extremely popular cocktail was claimed by several people back in the 1950s. In fact records of rum, coconut and pineapple mixed drinks can be found in several trading ships’ journals from the 18th century, whilst the first written reference relating to a named cocktail was in a 1922 edition of TRAVEL magazine that focused on the Puerto Rican bar scene: “But best of all is a piña colada, the juice of a perfectly ripe pineapple… rapidly shaken up with ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum in delicate proportions…” But the contemporary drink uses coconut cream – a process that wasn’t invented until 1948. The cocktail, as we know it, is most commonly associated with bartender Ramón “Monchito” Marrero Perez, who after being tasked with creating a creamy but refreshing drink, settled on the combination of native rum, pineapple and cream and debuted it on 15th August 1954 at the Caribe Hilton, San Juan.
