Pennsylvania Cocktail - Pineapple Week

The Pennsylvania Cocktail

2 oz light rum

1/2 oz pineapple juice

1 dash of grenadine

Mix and shake with ice. Strain into cocktail glass.

I bought this pineapple juice at the store some time ago and it has sat unopened in the fridge for a couple weeks. The expiry date is approaching in July so for the next couple cocktails I have decided to find ones that include pineapple juice. This pineapple juice says 100% juice on the box and the only ingredient listed is juice, so short of juicing your own pineapple (probably not a fun process) this is as good as its going to get.

The first drink for the Pineapple extravaganza was one of the first ones I found on CocktailDB: Pennsylvania Cocktail on CocktailDB.com.

CocktailDB is a great site, however there is one small bone I have to pick with it. On the About section of the website they say:

We differ from other cocktail web sites in numerous ways, but mainly, all of the recipes in CocktailDB have been authenticated in print. This cuts out all the sophomoric, never-once-ordered recipes clogging many other drink sites. We already have the largest collection of verified drink recipes on the Internet or in any book, and this collection will continue to grow.

Which is great, especially if you are all into historical accuracy. However, what the folks at CocktailDB fail to do is list the SOURCE of the cocktail on the individual cocktail pages. It does not do me any good to know that a cocktail came from a book if I cannot know what book it came from.

Which brings me to the Pennsylvania Cocktail. Why does a cocktail called the Pennsylvania Cocktail have both Rum and Pineapple juice in it? Was there a Pennsylvania Bar/Club in Miami? Puerto Rico? Having a citation of what book the drink came from would produce a very useful line of research!

On to the drink!

The drink itself was kind of... blah. Nothing exciting. No pineapple flavor (what was I expecting? 2 oz spirit and only 1/2 juice?) Sipping the Rum neat, and then comparing to the cocktail makes the cocktail seem slightly sweeter and the alcohol softened a bit by some indeterminable agent (the juice obviously, but you cannot tell in the least that it is pineapple juice).

Not a drink I would recommended, perhaps increasing the pineapple juice might help, but I think the cocktail would still be lacking and a relatively uninteresting drink.