Piña Colada: a frozen recipe for a tropical cocktail

An interesting sounding item in the twitter-stream led the Utah Mixologist to an interesting post by Simon Ford on Liquor.com titled “In Defense of Blender Cocktails”.  Blended drinks have been out of style for many years, Ford reports, but may now be undergoing a resurgence as “a few new brave bars” are beginning to serve blended drinks again.  While the observant will point out that any good Mexican restaurant serves frozen Margaritas, there is a lot of truth in Simon’s post when it comes to plain, vanilla cocktail bars.  Blended drinks have never been out of style for this mixologist, but they can be hard to find once you’re out of Margarita territory.  It would be great if anyone in Salt Lake City, or anywhere else as far as that goes, who has a favorite cocktail bar or restaurant that serves blended cocktails besides Margaritas could share that info with other readers in a response to this post.

Shawn Vergara of Blackbird in San Francisco wrote that a blended cocktail is “like a vacation in a glass,” and that thought really resonates.  Whenever I’m in Hawaii I like to kick back on the lanai and enjoy a Piña Colada (follow the link for my rocks recipe).  Job one upon arrival (and about the only job that should be done in Hawaii) is to get to the grocery store and/or the ABC Store to get some Rum and the necessaries for Piña Coladas and Mai Tais.  Piña Colada is a delicious cocktail, especially if you enjoy sweeter cocktails, Rum-based cocktails, or tiki cocktails (or all three).  Even in a vacation condo you should avoid commercial Piña Colada mixers.  They’re high in sugar and often have a chalky texture, and they don’t really taste as good as natural juices.  I usually use Coco Reál® Cream of Coconut for my cocoanut drinks, but it’s so thick it’s hard to measure, so I usually “guestimate” the amount and just squirt some directly from the squeeze bottle into the blender. 

Piña Colada

1 ½ oz light (or gold) Rum

½ oz Lime juice, freshly squeezed (1/2 Lime)

½ - 1 oz Coco Reál® Cream of Coconut (one healthy squirt)

1 ½ oz Pineapple or Orange juice

¼ oz Falernum

½ oz Orgeat

1 thick slice of fresh, ripe Pineapple

Combine the ingredients with ice in a blender (about 6 to 8 ice cubes, enough to make it thick).  Blend until smooth.  For garnish, use a cocktail pick to pin a maraschino cherry to a pineapple wedge or orange wheel, and serve with a straw.