Have You Tried a Stirred Piña Colada?

Once you consider a piña colada, you in all probability image the thick, white, usually frozen drink usually discovered resting on pool- or beach-side chairs. It was the primary drink my dad and mom let me strive whereas visiting our household in Puerto Rico, and I liked its excellent mix of two of my favourite fruit flavors (to not point out the resemblance it needed to fuel station ICEEs my teenage self liked). Nonetheless, because of my school behavior of creating batched, blended cocktails for the pre-games my roommate and I’d throw, it’s additionally a drink that, years later, I can now not abdomen.

In the identical household because the mai tai, zombie, and jungle chicken, piña coladas are a basic tiki-style cocktail that you just’ll discover on the menu at any bar with an affection for rum or a tropic-inspired cocktail program. Any bartender could make one, in fact, whatever the bar they’re behind, however one thing about ordering one at a dive doesn’t really feel fairly the identical.

Strolling into Mo’s Normal—a small restaurant and bar on the nook of Skillman and Lorimer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—you’ll discover a place that feels made for sipping a martini or taking a swig of a Nascar spritz (a play on a spaghet, made with Miller Highlife, Aperol, and a splash of lemon juice) and ordering a bowl of mozzarella sticks or a slice of pizza. The tables are red-checkered, the bar’s a deep mahogany, the lavatory partitions are lined with framed photographs of neighbors’ canines, and for those who sit on the bar lengthy sufficient, it’s simple to imagine that the bartender actually simply may know the title of everybody in there. (Disclaimer: I work weekends as a bartender at Mo’s. Nonetheless, I performed no function within the cocktail menu growth.)

Given its tavern-adjacent really feel, you’d in all probability guess the most well-liked cocktail on the menu is that aforementioned martini (Mo’s makes use of a fat-washed gin) or a calming pint glass full of a home beer. Nonetheless, you’d be mistaken. Each shift I work, whatever the climate or the season we’re in, the Stirred Piña Colada is the drink that’s persistently fawned over by first-timers and regulars alike.

A play on the Puerto Rican cocktail, the Stirred Piña Colada was created by bartender Galen Huggins, earlier this yr. “Years in the past I labored at a tiki bar. Me and [another] bartender there have been considering of the way we may flip some tiki classics on their head, and we considered making a stirred piña colada,” Galen says. They by no means received round to it, however the concept stayed in his head. Inside a number of weeks of beginning his job at Mo’s earlier this yr, he developed the recipe, and it discovered its place on the menu.

If you happen to order the cocktail on the bar, you’ll discover that it’s poured straight right into a mixing glass with ice and stirred, then strained right into a rocks glass and served, on the rocks, with an orange peel for garnish. Because of its fast reputation and rising demand on the bar, prepping the cocktail in ready-to-pour batches makes essentially the most sense for effectivity, however it may be damaged down right into a single serving simply as simply.

Right here’s every thing you’ll want:

• Brinley Gold Shipwreck Coconut Rum

• Heirloom Pineapple Amaro

• Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum

• Plantation 3 Star White Rum

• 4% lactic acid answer to “substitute the acidity and creaminess of an everyday piña colada [made with lactic acid powder and water],” Galen explains. If you cannot (or do not wish to) make it at house, he recommends skipping it versus looking for a substitute.

• Saline answer to assist brighten up candy and bitter flavors, particularly citrus. Once you add a low focus of salt to a cocktail it can provide the flavors a elevate. The hot button is to verify it is a sufficiently small quantity that it does not style like there’s added salt.

• an orange

• ice

• a mixing glass

• a rocks glass

Need to style this Stirred Piña Colada for your self however can’t make it to Brooklyn? Observe Galen’s recipe above.

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