Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico's beloved Christmas drink: a silky coconut-rum nog that families blend by the bottle and gift to everyone they love. Ingredients: coconut milk, cream of coconut, evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, Puerto Rican rum, vanilla, ground cinnamon and nutmeg. Method: 1) Blend everything until completely smooth. 2) Bottle and chill overnight — the flavor deepens as it rests. 3) Shake well and serve cold in small glasses with a dusting of cinnamon. The experience: creamy, gently spiced, dangerously easy to drink — the official taste of a Puerto Rican Navidad. History: Puerto Rico is one of the world's great rum lands — Bacardi runs its largest distillery in Cataño and the Serrallés family has distilled Don Q in Ponce since 1865 — and coquito is where that rum tradition meets the island's coconut-rich holiday table. Every family guards its own recipe.

The official national drink of Puerto Rico since 1978, and the taste of the Caribbean in a glass: rum, pineapple and coconut blended into a frosty, tropical swirl. Ingredients: Puerto Rican white rum, pineapple juice, cream of coconut, crushed ice. Method: 1) Blend the rum, juice and cream of coconut with a generous cup of crushed ice until smooth and frothy. 2) Pour into a chilled hurricane or goblet glass. 3) Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a cherry. The experience: cold, lush and sunshine-sweet — a beach day you can hold. History: the piña colada was created in San Juan in 1954, credited to bartender Ramón “Monchito” Marrero at the Caribe Hilton, who spent months perfecting it; Puerto Rico proclaimed it the national drink in 1978. Its base spirit carries the island's centuries-old rum craft.

Puerto Rico's legendary moonshine: a fiery sugarcane spirit, distilled in the hills and shared in small, serious shots — especially at Christmas. Ingredients: sugarcane (fermented cane juice or molasses), water, yeast — and in the cured style, pitorro “curao,” tropical fruits, raisins, spices or coffee beans steeped in the spirit. Method: 1) Ferment the cane base, then distill it in small stills. 2) For curao, bury or rest the bottle packed with fruit and spice so the flavors marry. 3) Serve in tiny shots — it is strong, and respect is part of the ritual. The experience: a clean cane burn that blooms into fruit and spice, passed hand to hand among family. History: pitorro was made clandestinely for generations under colonial-era taxes and bans, which only deepened its mystique; today a few licensed distillers bottle legal artisanal versions alongside the treasured homemade ones.