The guys get together to talk the famous and oft misunderstood, Puerto Rico’s own, Piña Colada. You’ll need pineapple juice, coconut cream, maybe Coco Lopez or we’ll tell you how to make yourself, thank you Smuggler’s Cove cocktail book, pick your preferred cocktail rum, you can do white, you could do dark, you could mix them all together, and maybe some lime juice to balance out the sweetness of the drink. You could blend it or you could shake it up with ice, using a shaker, a jigger and your own resilience! Ben talks his first piña colada flavored Slurpee at 7-Eleven as a boy, then enjoyed a virgin colada on vacation with the fam as a boy, but as a trained professional bartender, the piña colada only recently came into his purview. The Sunny Spot in Venice has an unreal slushy machine version of the piña colada that changed Ben’s mind. You can make it with the canned goods, the pineapple juice and the Coco Lopez coconut cream, or you can chef it up, make your own pineapple juice, peeling the pineapple, slicing out the core, chop it up, add water and blend it before using a sieve to strain it, and then if you’re interested, you could turn the pineapple pulp into a garnish by seasoning it with sugar and acid, dehydrate and then season to taste. Blow your friends’ minds with that! Or you could make a pineapple shrub if you’re so inclined. And then for coconut cream, buy coconut milk, maybe at a Thai grocery store, or your local Whole Foods, equal parts coconut milk and a rich syrup, two parts sugar to one part water(400 grams of sugar to 200 grams of hot water plus one can of coconut milk), it’s sweeter than simple syrup, but richer in texture that adds to the creaminess of the coconut milk. Try making your own, it can be used to sweeten your coffee, put it on fruit, over ice cream, it’s just a great stock fridge item that will preserve for a few weeks! But without the rum, there’s no cocktail! Try a rum that appeals to you, maybe something that is easy to get, maybe there are multiple rums you want to use, it’s up to you!!! Quality is important though, the nicer your ingredients, the nicer the cocktail. Take the tiki route, grab your 151 Bacardi, maybe a three year rum from Real McCoy, or surprise yourself! Check out Andy Ricker, proprietor of the great Pok Pok, makes a vinegar cordial, specifically a thai basil cordial that kim uses for his recipe that goes well with pineapple and coconut. Try Ben’s recipe, 2 ounces each of coconut cream and pineapple, equal parts, half ounce of lime juice to balance out the sweetness and two, maybe two and a half ounces of rum, and shake it up. If you’re blending it, maybe three ounces of pineapple, an ounce of coconut cream, up to an ounce of lime juice, two and a half ounces of rum and try it with a pinch of salt, so good when blended! We really love the piña colada and we hope you do too as you listen to another episode of Equal Parts: A Bartending Podcast about Cocktails!