Puerto Rico: Piña Colada — The Culture and History of Drinks Around the World

When I was at primary school, my parents used to subscribed to a magazine which carried a regular series of travel essays.

The writer described experiences from all over the world, as well as different parts of Japan, in fascinating detail. I always looked forward to reading each instalment.

One of the essays described a stay at a tropical resort. I enjoyed reading about the beautiful scenery, the food and the drinks, but one particular word caught my attention:

Piña Colada.

From the context, it seemed to be some sort of drink. But as a primary-school child, I simply assumed it was a fruit juice or something similar.

Years later, when I was old enough to drink, I once went to a South American restaurant in Tokyo with some friends who were studying Spanish.

While we were there, a waiter brought something to the customers sitting in a booth on the other side of the aisle.

“Piña Colada.”

The moment I heard those words, a distant memory came back to me.

The large glass was decorated rather proudly with a slice of pineapple. The pale yellow, cloudy drink had a wonderfully tropical appearance.

It was the first time that the words “Piña Colada”, which until then had existed only on the pages of an essay, had suddenly appeared in front of me as a real drink.

“I really wanted to drink this.”

The happy smile on the customer's face as she looked at the glass has stayed with me all these years.

After that, I somehow never had much to do with piña coladas. But in recent years, during the increasingly hot Japanese summers, I suddenly remembered that scene.

The smile of the customer who had ordered a piña colada at that restaurant. And the cold-looking cocktail in that beautifully decorated glass.

When I started looking into it, I discovered that the piña colada has a surprisingly fascinating history.

The place most commonly associated with the origins of the cocktail is Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean and a territory of the United States with its own distinctive culture and history.

The piña colada as we know it today is a tropical cocktail generally made with rum, pineapple juice and coconut cream. This cocktail is closely associated with Puerto Rico and is widely enjoyed there.

But what exactly is its history?

The Origins of the Piña Colada

The strongest claims for its birthplace centre on Viejo San Juan, the old city of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

But who actually created the piña colada there?

There are several theories, but three bartenders are particularly often mentioned.

1. Ramón “Monchito” Marrero

Ramón “Monchito” Marrero was a bartender who worked at the Beachcomber Bar at the Caribe Hilton in Viejo San Juan.

According to the hotel, Marrero created the piña colada in 1954 as a welcome drink for hotel guests.

CNN reported that, originally, it was simply a refreshing drink made by shaking coconut cream and pineapple juice together, without any rum. Once blenders became available on the island of Puerto Rico, it was transformed into a cocktail made with rum and ice. (You can watch this episode on Youtube)

This cold cocktail must have been the perfect drink for welcoming travellers arriving in tropical Puerto Rico.

Imagine arriving at a hotel after travelling through the heat, only to have a chilled, pale-yellow cocktail brought to you.

Surely that alone would have made you feel as though your tropical holiday had begun.

And there are also memories of Marrero among people who worked at the hotel.

In 2022, Fodor's featured Héctor Santos López, a long-serving bartender at the Caribe Hilton who later worked alongside Marrero.

According to López, Marrero was a very humble man who was always smiling. At the hotel, he was known as “the piña colada man”.

Even more interestingly, López's uncle, Carmelo López Rosa, was already working at the Caribe Hilton in 1954.

López said that he had heard from his uncle that the piña colada really had been created at the hotel.

Of course, memories passed down among hotel employees cannot, on their own, establish the identity of the inventor as a matter of historical fact.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that, alongside the hotel's official account, there is also a memory among people who actually worked there that Marrero was the person who created the piña colada.

2. Ricardo García

Ricardo García was another bartender who once worked at the Caribe Hilton.

García himself also claimed that he was the creator of the piña colada.

According to one account, in 1954, a shortage of coconuts prompted García to come up with a different approach, and this led to the creation of the cocktail.

There is another theory, however, that García modified the cocktail created by Marrero, changing the way the pineapple juice was used and helping to establish the name.

There is no clear evidence showing who made it first, or whether the two men were actually making their own versions of the cocktail in different ways.

Rather than deciding that either Marrero or García alone was the “inventor”, it is therefore possible that several bartenders working behind the same hotel bar influenced one another as the drink gradually developed towards the form we know today.

3. Ramón Portas Mingot

The third candidate is Ramón Portas Mingot.

Mingot was a bartender at Barrachina, a restaurant in Viejo San Juan, and is said to have created the piña colada there in 1963.

A marble plaque commemorating Mingot's achievement can still be found at Barrachina.

So, of these three men, who was the real inventor?

The argument continues.

If you visit Viejo San Juan and see the plaque at Barrachina, you may well come away convinced that Mingot was the inventor. Visit the Caribe Hilton, however, and you may feel equally certain that Marrero deserves the credit.

Interestingly, Difford's Guide, a detailed reference source on spirits and cocktails, suggests that all three men may have played a part.

One possibility is that Marrero created the original cocktail, García modified it, and a similar version was later served at Barrachina, where it became widely known as the piña colada.

This is only one hypothesis, rather than an established historical fact.

Personally, however, I find it an intriguing possibility.

Looking at the dates, it seems entirely possible that a welcome drink created at the Caribe Hilton was gradually refined, and that around ten years later another bartender at a city restaurant developed a similar cocktail.

Perhaps it is more natural to think of the piña colada as a cocktail that evolved through the hands of several people, rather than trying to give all the credit to one individual.

And whoever the original bartender was, perhaps what lay behind the drink was the same spirit of hospitality: the desire to make travellers who had arrived at a hotel or restaurant in the heat feel welcome.

There must have been many travellers whose day suddenly became a little cooler when a beautifully decorated glass of pale-yellow, ice-cold cocktail appeared in front of them.

A Cocktail Created by a Pirate?

There is, however, another story about the piña colada.

This time, the creator was not a modern bartender, but a pirate.

A famous Puerto Rican pirate of the nineteenth century, Roberto Cofresí, also known as El Pirata Cofresí, is said to have created a drink containing rum, coconut and pineapple to raise the spirits of his crew.

There is one problem with this story.

Cofresí's recipe is said to have been lost when he died, so there is no way of proving that this drink ever really existed.

For that reason, it is probably best regarded not as established historical fact, but as one of the more intriguing legends surrounding the piña colada.

The Name “Piña Colada”

The name piña colada is said to mean “strained pineapple” in Spanish.

Piña means pineapple, while colada refers to something that has been strained or filtered.

Interestingly, however, the name itself appears to have been used before the cocktail associated with the Caribe Hilton came into existence.

Difford’s Guide explains that, the December 1922 issue of Travel magazine appears to be the first written reference to a drink called “Piña Colada”. And it was referring to a Cuban beverage. According to the article, it was made by shaking the juice of a ripe pineapple with ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum. Interestingly, there seems to be no coconut by the time the magazine was issued.

In other words, the piña colada of 1922 was quite different from the Puerto Rican style cocktail we know today.

There does not appear to be any clear evidence of a direct connection between this Cuban drink recorded in 1922 and the Puerto Rican piña colada that later became associated with the Caribe Hilton and Barrachina.

The New York Times also mentioned a “piña colada” as a Cuban drink in 1950. This raises the possibility that the name itself did not originate in Puerto Rico.

The more one traces the history of the piña colada, therefore, the more complicated it becomes. There are several theories not only about who invented the drink, but also about when and where the cocktail as we know it today was actually completed.

And perhaps that uncertainty is part of what makes the history of the piña colada so fascinating.

From Cocktail to National Drink of Puerto Rico

The story of how the cocktail came to represent Puerto Rico is fascinating too.

According to material from the CaribeHilton and other sources, the piña colada became the official drink of Puerto Rico in 1978.

A 1980 article in The Washington Post reported that Ramón “Monchito” Marrero had reached his three-millionth piña colada at the Caribe Hilton in 1978. A celebration was held, and Marrero received a medal and a diploma. According to Marrero, government officials then declared his piña colada the national drink of Puerto Rico.

Marrero later recalled the event: “The Caribe Hilton gave me a party, and I received a medal and a diploma. And the government officials who were there declared my piña colada the national drink of Puerto Rico.”

Then, in 2004, Sila María Calderón, who was Governor of Puerto Rico at the time, signed a proclamation commemorating the 50th anniversary of the piña colada, according to the Caribe Hilton.

In the case of this 2004 event, it seems more accurate to describe it as a proclamation commemorating the cocktail's 50th anniversary, rather than as a formal re-designation of the drink as Puerto Rico's national drink.

The Culture of “Boricua”

While researching the piña colada, I also came across the word Boricua.

The word is slightly removed from the history of the drink itself, but knowing what it means helps us understand something about why the piña colada has such a strong connection with Puerto Rican identity.

Boricua is a word used by Puerto Ricans to refer to themselves. It comes from Borikén, or Borinquen, the name used by the indigenous Taíno people for the island.

Today, it is more than simply a geographical or ethnic term. It can express Puerto Rican culture, pride and identity.

Puerto Rican culture reflects many different historical influences: the traditions of the indigenous Taíno people, Spanish colonial rule, and the cultures of people brought from Africa, among others.

The piña colada, too, has become one of the drinks associated with Puerto Rico, where these different histories and cultures intersect.

It is the sort of cocktail you can order casually in a bar or restaurant. And if you drink one on a beach as the sun goes down, it would probably be hard not to feel that you had escaped into the tropics.

Visiting the Home of the Piña Colada

If I ever travel to Puerto Rico, I would love to spend some time walking through the old city of San Juan.

San Juan is home to La Fortaleza and the National Historic Site of San Juan, including the famous fortress of San Felipe del Morro, better known as El Morro. The historic area is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

El Morro, in particular, is one of the great symbols of San Juan.

And in this historic city are two places connected with the competing stories about the origins of the piña colada: the Caribe Hilton and Barrachina.

Imagine walking through the old city and stopping at one of them for a cold piña colada.

Even that simple act might make the history of the cocktail feel a little more real.

Just imagining it is rather appealing.

Enjoying a Piña Colada at Home

If you are looking for somewhere to enjoy a piña colada, an authentic cocktail bar or a restaurant or bar specialising in Latin American or Caribbean food might be a good place to start.

There is something rather pleasant about sitting back with a cold cocktail prepared by a bartender and allowing yourself to feel, just for a while, as though you were somewhere tropical.

Of course, some people may think:

“I don't often go to places like that.”

In that case, why not make one at home?

There are countless recipes online, but with a few basic ingredients, a piña colada is relatively easy to make at home.

Piña Colada Recipe

Serves one

2 tablespoons white rum
About 80–90 ml pineapple juice
About 2 tablespoons coconut cream
(Some recipes use sweetened coconut cream.)
Crushed ice, as required
A cocktail shaker, or another container with a secure lid

Shake all the ingredients together with the ice until well mixed.

If you do not have a cocktail shaker, you can use a clean container with a lid that closes securely.

Pour into a glass and decorate with a slice of pineapple if you like. It will add an extra touch of tropical atmosphere.

Of course, there are many different versions of the piña colada. The Caribe Hilton itself now gives its own recipe using rum, coconut cream, pineapple juice and ice.

One of the ingredients that has become almost inseparable from the modern piña colada is the sweetened coconut cream Coco López, a product developed in Puerto Rico.

That, too, is an interesting part of the cocktail's history.

Perhaps One Day, in Puerto Rico

As I write this essay, on 30 August 2026, the intense summer heat in Japan seems finally to be easing a little.

Even so, it is still very much the season for cold cocktails.

When I was at primary school, I first encountered the words “Piña Colada” in the pages of a travel magazine.

Several decades later, I finally discovered what that mysterious drink actually was. And then I began looking into the history behind it.

All I did was investigate one cocktail.

Yet behind that single glass were three bartenders, a pirate legend, Puerto Rican culture, the Spanish language, the indigenous Taíno people, and the long history of the Caribbean.

Perhaps that is one of the pleasures of alcoholic drinks.

Inside the glass there is nothing more mysterious than rum, pineapple and coconut.

But follow that drink back through time, and suddenly you begin to see the history of the people who have lived in the place where it was created.

I am happy enough to be able to enjoy a piña colada in Japan.

But if I ever have the chance to visit Puerto Rico, I would love to drink one there, surrounded by the same air and atmosphere as the people who call the island home.

I would like to look out over the old fortresses, feel the Caribbean breeze, and then, as evening falls over San Juan, sit down with a cold piña colada.

One small phrase I encountered in a magazine when I was a primary-school child.

After several decades, those words have somehow transformed themselves into a longing for a place I have never yet visited.

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