Have You Tried a Stirred Piña Colada?

When you think of a piña colada, you probably picture the thick, white, typically frozen drink often found resting on pool- or beach-side chairs. It was the first drink my parents let me try while visiting our family in Puerto Rico, and I loved its perfect blend of two of my favorite fruit flavors (not to mention the resemblance it had to gas station ICEEs my teenage self loved). However, thanks to my college habit of making batched, blended cocktails for the pre-games my roommate and I would throw, it’s also a drink that, years later, I can no longer stomach.

In the same family as the mai tai, zombie, and jungle bird, piña coladas are a classic tiki-style cocktail that you’ll find on the menu at any bar with an affection for rum or a tropic-inspired cocktail program. Any bartender can make one, of course, regardless of the bar they’re behind, but something about ordering one at a dive doesn’t feel quite the same.

Walking into Mo’s General—a small restaurant and bar on the corner of Skillman and Lorimer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—you’ll find 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 bathroom walls are covered with framed photos of neighbors’ dogs, and if you sit at the bar long enough, it’s easy to believe that the bartender really just might know the name of everyone in there. (Disclaimer: I work weekends as a bartender at Mo’s. However, I played no role in the cocktail menu development.)

Given its tavern-adjacent feel, you’d probably guess the most popular cocktail on the menu is that aforementioned martini (Mo’s uses a fat-washed gin) or a chilled pint glass filled with a domestic beer. However, you’d be wrong. Every shift I work, regardless of the weather or the season we’re in, the Stirred Piña Colada is the drink that is consistently 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 year. “Years ago I worked at a tiki bar. Me and [another] bartender there were thinking of ways we could flip some tiki classics on their head, and we thought of making a stirred piña colada,” Galen says. They never got around to it, but the idea stayed in his head. Within a few weeks of starting his job at Mo’s earlier this year, he developed the recipe, and it found its place on the menu.

If you order the cocktail at the bar, you’ll notice that it’s poured straight into a mixing glass with ice and stirred, then strained into a rocks glass and served, on the rocks, with an orange peel for garnish. Thanks to its quick popularity and rising demand at the bar, prepping the cocktail in ready-to-pour batches makes the most sense for efficiency, but it can be broken down into a single serving just as easily.

Here’s everything you’ll need:

• Brinley Gold Shipwreck Coconut Rum

• Heirloom Pineapple Amaro

• Smith & Cross Jamaica Rum

• Plantation 3 Star White Rum

• 4% lactic acid solution to “substitute the acidity and creaminess of a regular piña colada [made with lactic acid powder and water],” Galen explains. If you can't (or don't want to) make it at home, he recommends skipping it versus trying to find a substitute.

• Saline solution to help brighten up sweet and sour flavors, specifically citrus. When you add a low concentration of salt to a cocktail it can give the flavors a lift. The key is to make sure it's a small enough amount that it doesn't taste like there's added salt.

• an orange

• ice

• a mixing glass

• a rocks glass

Want to taste this Stirred Piña Colada for yourself but can’t make it to Brooklyn? Follow Galen’s recipe above.

More from Food52

• Our 52 Most Popular Products of All Time
• 10 Dansk Pieces Made for Fall Entertaining (and Curling up at Home)
• Our Favorite Fall Baking Recipes
• 19 Essentials for Setting a Modern Farmhouse Table

---

What's your favorite cocktail to make at home? Let us know below!