Piña Colada

The Piña Colada cocktail was created in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar. Its ingredients typically include white rum, cream of coconut, pineapple juice, and crushed ice, combined in an electric blender until smooth and icy, then garnished with a pineapple wedge and maraschino cherry. (However, this is an oft-adapted cocktail and myriad variations exist, such as the additions of dark rum and heavy cream.)

Although its birthplace is well documented, there is some debate as to who exactly created the drink, and the precise date of its creation. In general, Ramon “Monchito” Marrero Perez, one of the Caribe Hilton’s early local bartenders, gets the nod, dating the drink to 15 August 1954. As the story goes, Perez spent three months experimenting before he finally created a drink he felt captured “the sunny, tropical flavors of Puerto Rico in a glass.”