What To Know When Choosing Pineapple Juice For Piña Coladas

As one of the most popular cocktails of all time, the piña colada isn't a terribly complicated drink when it comes to ingredients. Excluding garnishes or kitschy decorative umbrellas, it requires only coconut cream (not to be confused with cream of coconut), rum, and pineapple juice; some recipes add simple syrup and lime juice, too. Pineapple juice makes up much of the cocktail and is essential for its tropical flavor, so make sure you're choosing it carefully.

For mixologist and author of two-ingredient cocktail book "Pour Together" Rodger Kamholz, that means heading to the produce section of your grocery store. In an exclusive conversation with Chowhound, Kamholz says, "As a general recommendation, when you're mixing fruit juices in cocktails, fresh and ripe is typically best! This applies to pineapple." Ripe is a key word here: The right pineapple should be a yellow-to-gold color (not green) and have a tropical scent. If it's mushy or has brown leaves, it might be too old.

Since cutting pineapples requires some care, juicing them at home may be intimidating, but it's straightforward. You can use a juicer, blender, or food processor to prepare your pineapple element, using a strainer to remove the pulp. If you use frozen pineapple chunks, make sure to thaw them before juicing.

If you really aren't in the mood to peel a pineapple, or don't have the appliances to help with juicing, there are some okay options in the juice section of the supermarket. Rodger Kamholz recommends looking for the purest possible option, suggesting that you check the ingredients list and go for options that are made up of 100% juice.

"Watch out for excessive added sugar, as well. If the drink recipe you're following was proportionally balanced using fresh pineapple juice, then sweetened store bought juice is going to yield a more cloying drink, all else equal," he says. (If you do end up with sweetened juice, you could try eliminating any syrup, if your recipe calls for it.)

Look to the refrigerator section, as juice here is fresher — shelf-stable options tend to have additives, as well as added sugar, which helps them to keep while on the shelf. This could tip your cocktail's balance into too-sweet territory, or force you to make guesses about how to adjust the recipe to account for extra sugar. 

These rules also extend to juices for other cocktails. "Generally opt for fresh fruit ingredients in cocktails when it's possible and not cost-prohibitive. This still holds true in drinks with many ingredients, where a lot of flavors are vying to express themselves," Kamholz adds. If you're super committed, you could even make your own coconut cream for a piña colada by whipping coconut solids, although that may be too onerous for some.