Piña Coladas

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer. That means grilling, outdoor parties and lots of frozen drinks. I’ve got plenty of drink recipes to share with you over the next couple of months, but I wanted to share this one today so that you can make it this weekend. Many of you likely have a four day weekend coming up, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with piña coladas.

I know, I know – you can buy piña colada mix at any store. Making them fresh, though, yields a much tastier beverage and one that you can customize to your heart’s content. This recipe originally called for light or dark rum, but I substituted coconut rum. This is a tropical drink, after all! I think it would be fantastic with pineapple rum, too. Since I love coconut in all of its various forms, I topped my drink with a healthy dose of toasted coconut. If you don’t really like the texture of coconut, you could just use it to rim the glasses. This is just as easy to whip together as any frozen or bottled mix, and it tastes a hundred times better. This drink goes well with just about anything you can cook outside, so fire up the grill and enjoy a nice, frosty beverage while you’re cooking.