Chi-Chi
The vodka Piña Colada. Vodka, pineapple, cream of coconut—a cleaner, less funky read on the cream-of-coconut family that rose with vodka’s late-’60s ascendancy and rode the next two decades through every tiki bar and resort menu in the country.
The History
Attribution is disputed. Some sources credit the Chinchilla Room in Waikiki in the early 1970s; others credit Donn Beach’s Hollywood location. (Harry Yee, often pulled into Hawaiian-era invention stories, is credited with the Blue Hawaii—not the Chi-Chi.) What’s clear: the drink rose with vodka’s late-’60s ascendancy, started as the ‘Macadamia Nut Chi-Chi’ with macadamia liqueur, and simplified to the three-ingredient build that carried it through the 1970s and ’80s.
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz vodka
- 4 oz pineapple juice
- 1 oz cream of coconut (Coco López)
- Crushed ice
- Fresh pineapple wedge + brandied cherry (garnish)
Directions
Combine all ingredients with crushed ice in a shaker or blender.
Shake hard with ice—or, for the frozen serve, blend with crushed ice until slushy.
Strain over fresh crushed ice in a tall glass (shaken version), or pour directly from the blender (frozen version).
Garnish with a fresh pineapple wedge and a brandied cherry on a pick.