Piña Colada, the Best Beach Drink, National Geographic Says

“Today, San Juan’s signature cocktail is sipped all over the world, but tastes best in Puerto Rico, by the beach or pool,” said the magazine on Wednesday on its travel Web page, where it publishes the ranking of what it considers to be the top 10 drinks to sip on the beach.

A little more than two years ago, the magazine had first placed the cocktail in the No. 1 slot on its “Top 10” list.

The publication says that “The pineapple, coconut, and rum slurry known as piña colada had been popular in the Caribbean for at least a hundred years before Ramon ‘Monchito’ Marrero, a bartender at the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar (now called Oasis Bar) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, perfected it in the 1950s using cream of coconut.”

Following the Puerto Rican beverage in the rankings, in this order, are Brazil’s caipirinha, the Polynesia mai-tai, Jamaica’s Red Stripe beer and the Cuban daiquiri.

Rounding out the list, also in the following order, are Mexico’s margarita, Italy’s limoncello, the Cape Codder from Massachusetts, rosé from France’s Côte d’Azur and the gin and tonic from India.

Although the U.S. magazine mentions one version of the drink’s origin rather definitively, the Puerto Rican government has never made any statement on the matter and the cocktail was not patented.

Nevertheless, new versions of the drink have been concocted over the years, all of them based on the original formula, with many Puerto Rican hotels and restaurants opting to give it their own unique twists.