Guilty Pleasures: Cocktails & Cream

 

Whenever people discuss things that they enjoy - movies, music and the like - sooner or later the idea of the guilty pleasure comes up. It's a thing that you like, but maybe you wouldn't admit to liking in public, ours include ABBA and Britney Spears but the list is near endless!

 It's a topic that's as relevant to cocktails as it is to anything else. Thanks to the 1970s and '80s, there's a wealth of super sweet, liqueur heavy drinks in all the colours of the rainbow that can raise the eyebrows of even the most accommodating bartender.

But the idea of the guilty pleasure is a troublesome one - if something makes us feel good, why should we feel guilty about it? Particularly if it's as good as a well-made Piña Colada?

Like many Tiki-style drinks, the Piña Colada presents a picture of Polynesian drinking culture that’s not altogether accurate. That said, the Pina Colada may have a good historical pedigree. There is one origin story that credits it to a Puerto Rican pirate named Roberto Cofresí who died in 1825. If that's true, then the humble Piña Colada is at least a contemporary, if not a predecessor, of drinks like the Manhattan and the Martinez.

The key to a great Piña Colada is  coconut cream; sure, you could use coconut rum and double cream but you're really missing out if you've never tried it with Coco Lopez. At Sygn, we still include some double cream for a super luxurious texture, along with Appleton Estate V/X rum, a touch of Koko Kanu, Coco Lopez, pineapple juice, almond syrup and a couple of drops of Angostura Bitters.

 

Piña Colada

 1.5 shots of Appleton Estate V/X

0.5 shots of Koko Kanu

2 shots of pineapple juice

1 shot of Coco Lopez

1 shot of double cream

0.5 shots of orgeat (almond syrup)

2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

 Combine all ingredients in a blender. Add ice and blend until smooth. Pour into a large stemmed glass and garnish with two pineapple leaves, a wedge of pineapple, and a sprinkle of toasted coconut flakes.

 For some reason, blended drinks don't often seem to get the same level of respect as shaken or stirred ones. But when it tastes this good, there's nothing to feel guilty about.