Brad Makes BA's Best Piña Coladas

The problem with me and piña coladas

is that I'm like a little kid, I think it's just a slushie,

I drink four of 'em in 15 minutes

and I'm hungover in half an hour,

but you know, you do it a couple times in the summer

and it's worth it.

Especially when you earn it,

you know, you're on the beach all day, it's hot,

you go home or you go somewhere

and you got your little piña colada.

(smacks lips)

And you know, charge in a store, it'd cost you 10 bucks,

you make it at home, pennies on the dollar.

(light calypso music)

Hey guys, today in the test kitchen,

we're gonna be doing BA's best piña colada.

One of my favourite drinks, believe it or not.

Perfect in the summertime,

you got that little tropical coconut,

you got a little bit of that, you know, the pineapple,

you got your little rum, little bit of lime juice.

This is a recipe I made, I really enjoy it

so let's make it together, huh.

Song?

I never heard of a song about piña coladas.

[Tommy] No?

[Tommy] Anyway. Anyways.

So, yeah, you wanna go find a nice ripe pineapple

and if you can't find a ripe one,

let it sit out on your counter for a little bit,

you want it to get a little soft, little fragrant.

Some people, they go like pulling the,

some of these inner leaves out and if they release easily,

it's ripe or whatever,

but I just like to go by smell and touch

so we need half of this.

So I like to take the top off,

cutting out as much as the eyes and stuff,

they like to call those little things eyes,

not really quite sure why,

'cause you don't want any of that nasty stuff in your drink.

This is nice, you can tell it's nice and juicy.

You want something that's almost a little overripe

so the sugars are real present

and that's where all that big pineapple flavour's

gonna come from.

So then I take the core out,

I just like to half it and then quarter it,

you can just cut that out,

and then I just like to cut it into little chunks.

Small little bite-size chunks like that,

we're gonna throw it in a Ziploc bag

and freeze it until it's completely frozen solid.

So we want it to be a frozen drink

and might as well freeze this

and it's just gonna add to that nice

consistency you want in a piña colada.

So we'll throw this into the bag

and we'll pop that in the freezer.

This would be something that'd be nice to do

like the day ahead.

So we'll pop that in the freezer,

come back probably about three hours.

Oh, three hours later, perfect, frozen.

(laughs)

We have these Vitamix blenders, very nice.

I like to use something that has a little bit of power to it

'cause we're gonna be blending up ice, frozen pineapple.

So first thing I'll add is the frozen pineapple,

and then here, this is that Coco Lopez

and it's kind of just like a real sweet coconut,

I'm not quite sure what it is but it's like a coconut syrup.

Secret ingredient, Coco Lopez,

you can find it in like just general bad supermarkets

or good old Jeff Besos, he'll sell it to ya.

Pour that right in.

Put a little white rum in there, this is one cup.

It works, it's a good measurement,

if you wanted to add a little more, knock yourself out,

little less, or just no booze if you wanna make,

what do they call 'em, virgin piña coladas,

take out the booze

and you can still have a good time, you know.

You don't need booze to have a good time,

you just need a nice frosty drink.

Maybe a little booze.

This is unsweetened coconut milk.

That's a nice little touch too,

gives it a little bit of creaminess,

little extra coconut flavor,

'cause the pineapple's pretty dominant

so the Coco Lopez and the coconut milk

really makes a nice combo

and then I like to add a little bit of this lime juice,

this is two tablespoons,

and that just brightens everything up,

help all those flavors pop.

Cool, so we got that,

I'm gonna add the ice and we're gonna blend this up.

It's gonna get a little loud in here.

Oh, Vitamix, if you ever happen to see this video,

I don't have any more of the tops

so I gotta use this little glass jar.

Can we just get some tops?

Alright, here we go, you ready?

(light calypso music) (blender roaring)

Oh yeah.

I'm gonna give it a little stir.

You don't wanna go blending it too long

because as you're blending,

you're also creating a lot of friction,

and it's gonna heat it up and you know,

it is a frozen beverage after all.

I'm gonna give it a little stirry stir here.

You see, it's got a nice little frozen consistency.

Sometimes, I know this says BA's best,

but sometimes you want a little twang,

I like to throw in a little half of a,

or even a quarter of a frozen banana in there,

gives it a nice thickness and a little more roundness to it

and then I like too add sometimes

just a little bit of fresh mint

and it get like a little speckly, minty, oh, it's nice,

but we're gonna stay classic today.

So once that's all mixed up,

we'll give it one more little blend.

(light calypso music) (blender roaring)

So it's got like a decent little texture to it right now,

you know, like that don't look too bad, right.

What I like to do is you take the whole blender,

put the top back on it,

and I like to just pop it in the freezer, alright.

Get your glasses ready, pop that thing back on the blender.

Oh, so we had this in the freezer for about 25, 35 minutes

and it starts to set up a little bit,

keeps it real nice and cold.

It'll help with the consistency of it.

I like to give it a quick little zhoozh in the blender.

Nothing crazy just to reconstitute everything.

(light calypso music) (blender roaring)

and now it should be nice and frothy,

nice and frozen drinky.

And we got these nice little glasses, alright,

you can use whatever you want.

We got these cool little tiki glasses, a pint glass,

these little cute guys, these will work just fine.

Slice up a couple limes real quick.

Alright.

Look at that, nice and froth, nice consistency there.

Oh, that's the stuff.

And I like to do a little dark rum floater on the top.

Just a little extra, little pow yow, you know.

If you're at a bar, you can ask for that, they'll charge ya,

but you know, sometimes it's worth it.

Look at that, oh, little cherry on there.

Okay, got a little dark rum here.

Oh, we're getting saucy

and then I'll do another little glop of that.

Oh, that's it.

Little straw, okay.

You know, they just don't make these things

like they used to.

Must've got this ones at the dollar store, Tommy.

Alright, good, it's good enough.

Boom, huh, keep your drink in the shade, everyone's happy.

And you don't have to do the dark rum floater, you know,

you can just go tradish.

Oh yeah, that's it.

Little cherry.

Alright, we'll have a little red straw so we know who's who.

Oh mama.

Hey Molly, Andy, hey, don't go running,

you guys want a piña colada?

Andy, where you going?

Alright.

Oh God, you guys got tiki glasses.

Yeah, look at this, huh.

Amazing, okay.

Look, look, this one's for you.

Oh, why do I get the baby one?

Oh, look, this one's for you.

Thank you, because I want a rum floater--

And if you want.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta have it.

And this one had room for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta have the rum floater.

I'm just gonna have a sip.

Andy, come on.

It's still, it's three o'clock.

I have a long day.

Yeah, you know what.

Is this BA's best?

BA's best, what do you think?

It's (beep) delicious.

Ooh. It's so good.

Frigging delicious. It really is.

It's tasty. Well, yeah, we've...

[Brad] Coco Lopez.

It tastes like sunscreen in the best way possible.

Alright. You know.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Boozy sunscreen.

[Brad] (laughs) Boozy sunscreen.

I'm addicted to sunscreen so it's fine.

You wanna drink that in like five minutes, right.

I do, I don't wanna drink anymore.

Yeah, I can't, I have to teach tonight.

I'm gonna a get a hangover. I gotta go.

[Molly] Alright, you go hang out. Bye.

But they're good and it's fun times in the summer.

Thought these guys were cool.

Gaby, piña colada?

I'll take a little sip.

Oh geez, what is with these people and their sips?

Molly, say you go--

Here, I made this one just for you.

And I have to keep working.

Let's see, oh, I like this color and--

Now, it's been sitting out for a few so it could be,

it should be a little more frozen.

Alright, let's try it.

Mm, I like it, can I take it, bye.

Okay, buh-bye.

[Gaby] Thank you.

Guess I'll drink all these.

Cool, like I said, you can freeze your fruit,

your pineapple ahead of time

and just invite some friends over, have some fun,

it's a great, you know, everyone loves a piña colada,

especially, you know, it captures the summer

so before it's too late,

well, you know, August, my favourite month of the summer,

especially here on the east coast,

enjoy it, make some piña coladas, have fun, bon appétit.

[Tommy] Awesome. Cheers.

Tommy, you were talking before about that,

you know, everyone knows that piña colada song,

but a little fun fact for you, right,

it was an English guy, Rupert Holmes, okay, he wrote it.

♪ You like piña colada ♪

You know, he was trying to cheat on his wife, huh.

See what alcohol will do to you folks. (laughs)

And take three.