10th July: National Pina Colada Day

Today is National Piña Colada Day. Here's everything you need to know about this popular tipple.

1. The name Piña Colada literally means "strained Pineapple" in Spanish.
2. The drink was originally created by a pirate - the 19th century, Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí to be exact. He made his crew cocktails to boost their morale, but when he died, the recipe died with him.
3. It was resurrected, by most accounts, by Ramón "Monchito" Marrero Pérez who set out to recreate it at the Caribe Hilton Hotel's Beachcomber Bar in San Juan in 1954. It took him three months to perfect the recipe. Another Ramón, Ramón Portas Mingot, claims that he created the cocktail in 1963 at the Barrachina Restaurant, Old San Juan.
4. A piña colada is made from Rum, coconut cream or coconut milk, and pineapple juice. It is either blended or shaken with ice and garnished with a pineapple wedge or a maraschino cherry, or possibly both.
5. The piña colada has been the national drink of Puerto Rico since 1978.
6. It was a year later that Rupert Holmes had a hit with "The Piña Colada Song" (official title, Escape). The song is about a man who, bored with his relationship, looks in the personal ads and is attracted by one from a woman who "likes piña colada and getting caught in the rain." He arranges to meet her and it turns out to be his current partner. Neither of them knew the other liked piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, but now they knew, it gave their relationship a new lease of life. An interesting fact about the song was that it nearly wasn't about piña colada at all. The original lyrics were: “If you like Humphrey Bogart and getting caught in the rain,” but Holmes changed them at the last moment and the rest is history.
7. About the same time, Jazz icon and flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione released a tune titled Piña Colada on his album Fun and Games.
8. There are variations, of course. Leave out the rum and you get a piñita colada. If you use vodka instead of rum you get a chi chi. A lava flow is a piña colada and a strawberry Daquiri mixed together. A Blue Hawaii is a piña colada with blue Curaçao.
9. A piña colada made to the official IBA recipe has 243 calories.
10. The largest piña colada ever was made in London in 2010 as part of the Rumfest celebration. It was 310 litres and they used a cement mixer to mix it.