Piña Colada - tiziana nenezic

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THE CAPTIVATING HISTORY BEHIND THE LEGEND OF
WHAT IS POSSIBLY THE MOST POPULAR TROPICAL DRINK
IN THE WORLD TODAY. FROM THE SHAKER TO THE
BLENDER, SEPARATING MYTH FROM FACT ONE SMOOTH
INGREDIENT AT A TIME.
BY
TIZIANA NENEZICH
The tropics in a glass
Piña Colada
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Ramòn
“Monchito”
Marrero
pouring Piña Coladas at the Caribe
Hilton of San Juan, Puerto Rico,
where he allegedly created the
cocktail in 1954.
ristine miles of white,
powdery sand. Crystal
waters lapping languidly
against the sound. Sunshine
gently caressing the skin. The
welcome voice of a cabana boy
discreetly slices through the
afternoon haze and offers to
fetch us a drink. In slow motion,
we heed the muffled sound, and
these two little words trickle from
our barely parted lips: “Piña
Colada”.
If this scenario sounds familiar,
good for you. Like many before,
you have discovered the
pleasure of indulging in what
might very well be the most
influential cocktail of the last fifty
years. The number one choice on
cruise liners and at beach resorts
around the globe, Piña Colada
owes much of its fame to
international word of mouth and
one very catchy tune. It is, in fact,
undeniable that this fruity delight
eventually gained worldwide
recognition thanks to Rupert
P
Holmes’s “Escape, (The Piña
Colada Song)”, which hit the
airwaves in 1979. However, its
creation can be dated much
earlier than that, although
determining exactly when has
proven to be, so far, impossible.
The legend surrounding this
creamy concoction is full of false
starts and arguably false claims of
authorship. The term itself can be
found in print as far back as 1906
in The Washington Post, where it
is dubbed piña fria, as in piña fria
colada, the original incarnation of
this drink, which, as the name
suggests, is nothing more than
cold (in Spanish, fria), strained
(colada) pineapple (piña).
However, it isn’t until 1922 that
the nectar of this generous fruit is
found paired with alcohol, as
reported in the following Travel
magazine excerpt:
“But the best of all is a piña
colada, the juice of a perfectly
ripe pineapple—a delicious drink
in itself—rapidly shaken up with
The Caribe Hilton
in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the hotel’s Beachcomber bar the
legend of the Piña Colada was born.
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ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum
in delicate proportions. What
could be more luscious, more
mellow and more fragrant?”
What, indeed. But in this early
attempt, no mention of coconut
milk or cream can be found, thus
nixing the hypothesis that this
piña colada might be the
prototype of the cocktail we all
have come to love and slurp with
abandon. Then in 1937 The
Middletown Times Herald teases
us with the statement, “They also
sold a cocoanut[sic] and
pineapple mixture called
Pinacolada[sic]”. However, it is
immediately clear that this
reference points not at the
modern piña colada, but to what
Americans call Virgin Colada, the
non-alcoholic version of the
sweet libation, which does not
include rum. But we are getting
closer.
According to Maria Elena Pérez,
the Piña Colada was introduced
on August 15, 1954 at the Caribe
Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar in San
Juan, Puerto Rico by its alleged
creator, Ramon “Monchito”
Marrero. Apparently, the hotel
management had expressly
requested Monchito to mix a new
signature drink that would delight
the demanding palates of its starstudded clientele. Monchito
accepted the challenge, and after
3 intense months of blending,
shaking and experimenting, the
first Piña Colada was born.
Or maybe not…
Maybe it wasn’t Monchito the
skilled bartender, who singlehandedly changed the way we
think of cocktails today, as the
government of Puerto Rico would
have us believe. Maybe it was
Barcelona-born and Hilton
employee, Ricardo Gracia, who
claims to have invented the
contended drink in 1954 under a
series of fortuitous
circumstances. Rumor has it that
while Gracia worked at the Caribe
Hilton in San Juan de Puerto Rico,
the coconut cutters’ union
decided to strike. Until that
moment, the Puerto Rican drink
of choice had been the popular
Coco-Loco, a mix of coconut
milk, rum and coconut cream
served inside a fresh macheted
coconut. When the coconut
supply was halted by the strike,
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resourceful Ricardo Gracia made
the executive decision to relocate
the ingredients of the Coco-Loco
inside hollowed out pineapples
(evidently the pineapple cutters’
union had not followed suit with a
strike of their own). Once the
coconut flavor and rum came
into contact with the sweet
acidity of the pineapple pulp, the
Piña Colada was inevitably born.
Or was it?
Both Monchito and Gracia’s
stories are rather colorful, “the
stuff of legends”, one might even
say. However, the disclaimer of
the “Puerto Rican theory” is right
under our noses, black on white
and hard to ignore. In 1950, four
whole years before the Monchito
vs. Gracia contention began, The
New York Times published an
article in which all the ingredients
needed to shake together a
perfect piña colada appear
alongside the name of the drink
itself for the very first time:
“Drinks in the West Indies range
from Martinique’s famous rum
Punch to Cuba’s Piña Colada
(rum, pineapple and coconut
milk).”
What? CUBA?!? Does this mean
that not only the drink might not
be Monchito’s brainchild, as
many believe, but also that the
Puerto Rican government
misappropriated the Piña Colada
when it declared it “the national
drink of Puerto Rico” in 1978?
Apparently so, but let’s not be
too harsh on the enchanting
island because, although none of
its citizens did create the Piña
Colada, one of them certainly
made an important contribution
that helped make it the smooth
cocktail we know today. I’m
talking of Don Ramon Lopez
Irizarry, the agricultural professor,
who in his small laboratory
concocted the first batch of
Coco Lopez, a balanced mixture
of heart of coconut and cane
sugar, which effortlessly confers
to the Piña Colada its thick,
creamy texture. Incidentally, the
year was 1954, the same year in
which both Monchito and Gracia
claim to have blended the first
Piña Colada. Until Irizarry
developed its Coco Lopez
formula, extracting the coconut
cream from the pulp had been a
pretty difficult task, and,
interestingly enough, the Puerto
Rican government funded Don
Ramon’s research, which might
explain why 24 years later the
country felt entitled to declare the
Piña Colada its official drink.
In the end, whether the original
creator of the Piña Colada was a
Puerto Rican bartender, an
anonymous Cuban hedonist, a
European hotel employee, or
none of the above has absolutely
no effect on the thrill of enjoying
this winning tropical combination.
San Juan in Puerto Rico
landscape by day and by night.
The Caribe
Hilton
awards Monchito a plaque
proclaiming him the creator
of the Piña Colada. On the
same day, Coco Lopez, the
maker of the coconut
cream, presented Monchito
with a color TV set to mark
the selling of the 3 millionth
Piña Colada, while the
government of Puerto Rico
declared the fruity cocktail
the “national drink of
Puerto Rico. The year was
1978.
Back in the day, the most
glamorous Hollywood stars of the
time hailed the new drink with
raving enthusiasm. Celebrities
such as Gloria Swanson, John
Wayne, Liz Taylor, Joan Collins,
Charlton Heston declared the
flavorful potion downright
delicious, and that cannot
possibly be diminished by a trivial
squabble over who blended it
first. After all, we’re talking about
the same drink Joan Crawford
described “better than slapping
Bette Davis in the face”. The one
and the same that made Rupert
Holmes sing his way to the top of
the charts, although he later
confessed that he had never
tasted a Piña Colada in his life. His
loss, I say.
So here’s my advice. Do not fret
over pointless details, and just
follow these easy steps:
Monchito’s Recipe
- 2 ounces light rum
- 1 ounce coconut cream
- 1 ounce heavy cream
- 6 ounces fresh
pineapple juice
- 1/2 cup crushed ice
- Mix ingredients in a
blender
- Pour cocktail into a
fancy glass
- DRINK! REPEAT!!!
If after a couple of
rounds, your mind is still
debating who on earth
invented the Piña Colada
and when, try this:
Ricardo Gracia’s
Recipe
- one fresh pineapple
- one green coconut
- white rum
- one cup crushed ice
- Pour the juice of the
coconut into a blender.
- Add a scoop of the
coconut jelly (the gooey
stuff between the milk
and the meat).
- Chop off the top of the
pineapple and set aside.
- Hollow out the
pineapple and place
contents into the blender.
- Mix pineapple and
coconut well.
- Add the rum.
- Add crushed ice and
blend 5 minutes until
CREAMY.
- Pour pina colada into
the hollowed out
pineapple.
- Make a hole in the top
of the pineapple for a
straw, close and serve.
- DRINK! REPEAT!!!
Great! Now keep them
coming. And while you’re
mixing, shaking and
blending, remember
Ricardo Gracia’s words of
wisdom, which transcend
any Piña Colada recipe,
even his own:
"It must be done with
love. You learn the
measurements, but you
need not measure--use
your feel, your
personality! The touch is
born in your heart. Any
job you do with love is an
art. Remember, it is not a
frozen drink! It is not a
sorbet! Creamy,
creamy!".
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