Ingredients:

2 oz. Home-made coconut cream

2 oz. Pineapple Juice, from a pineapple.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. Stir to combine. Pour into a highball glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with brandied cherries and a pineapple leaf. Serve with a straw.

Perhaps the most fundamentally “summer” drink of our time. So essential that even a bad one is welcome during any vacation scenario because its flavor profile is representative of R’n’R’ (Rest and Relaxation, for all you young folks out there). Its been through the gauntlet, from becoming understood as a frozen drink, to being laced with artificially flavored ingredients replicating all of its elemental qualities from fake coconut and pineapple to artificial lime even! Good heavens! It needs Fat (cream), Sugar (rum, pineapple, coconut), Acid (pineapple), add a pinch of salt and we’re talking about the building blocks of classic dishes from all the worlds cultures. Oh, and pineapples and coconuts for sure have saline qualities, earth and minerality. The combination is nothing short of genius. But the devil, as always, is in the details.

Make your own coconut cream. Juice a fresh pineapple. Choose a good, inexpensive rum. Your efforts will be rewarded. Pineapple juice will be best produced from an electric juice extractor because its pretty efficient and strains the juice for you, but you can also buzz up the tender meat of the pineapple in a blender or food processor and strained through cheese cloth or a fine mesh strainer. For coconut cream simmer 2 cups of shredded coconut in 2 cups of heavy whipping cream for 10 minutes, then add 2 cups of lowfat Oatly oat-milk, chill and let rest covered in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours then strain and bottle. It will keep for a week or more. I like a rich, full-bodied rum because I don’t add sugar to my juice or cream. Use Havana Club Anejo if you can, it is wonderful and affordable, but you can use any rum you personally enjoy.