Pina Colada For Friends

I'm not sure why this cocktail gets it's own entry in the New York Bartender's Guide. The Pina Colada is a blender cocktail, so you can make a scaled up version of the single serving recipe if you like. But because it is listed in the book, I had to find an occasion to make the recipe that serves four people!

That is the reason why this is the last recipe in my quest to complete the New York Bartender's Guide 1997 edition. This has been a journey of more than four years, some of it frenetic during spurts of drinking activity and some of it drawn out as rare ingredients proved a challenge to find or make. All in all it has been an amazing journey and one that really made the mundane career as a bartender far more rewarding. It required me to go beyond the popular, the ordinary, and the safe. I had to create ingredients like Amer Picon, falernum, Forbidden Fruit and apricot brandy. I went on quests to find Lillet Blanc, Dubonnet Rouge, Pomelos, Batavia Arrack and Combier. And best of all, I learned how to make the most obscure and out of fashion cocktails just as the cocktail revival was underway, bringing these forgotten classics back to light. Now people ask for Aviations, Brookland Cocktails, and Swizzles and I can make them. So this goal, as arbitrary and costly as it was as, has enriched my bar-tending skill and my life.

Here's the final recipe of my long-awaited finale: the Pina Colada For Friends.

• 1 cup light rum (Flor de Cana Extra Seco used)
• 2 oz. dark rum (Pusser's Navy Rum used)
• 5 oz. coconut cream
• 10 oz. pineapple juice
• 2 oz. half and half
• 4 pineapple spears and leaves

Combine liquid ingredients in a blender with ice. Blend until smooth and pour into four chilled Collins glasses. Garnish with pineapple spears and leaves.