Cocktails with Pineapple juice
Pineapple juice is the sweet-tart juice pressed from ripe pineapple flesh, used fresh or from carton in tiki and tropical cocktails.
How it's used
It does two jobs at once, sweetening and souring, which is why a tiki recipe can carry a lot of it and still need lime. The commonest measure here is 30 ml, rising to 45 where the juice is carrying the drink. Shaken hard it throws a head without any egg white, so a Piña Colada or a Painkiller gets its texture from the juice itself. Rum and coconut are the obvious partners, and it hides the burn of an overproof rum better than almost anything.
Substitutes for Pineapple juice
Fresh, carton or canned pineapple juice all swap one for one, and all foam when shaken. In drinks with cream, packaged is safer: fresh juice can curdle it. In a pinch, blend canned pineapple and strain it; if it was packed in syrup, the drink will need less syrup. Nothing else tastes of pineapple. Mango or passion fruit nectar, in the same amount, keeps the drink tropical but makes a different one, so taste as you go.
Carton or canned pineapple juice
Heat-treated, so its aroma is flatter than fresh and the enzyme that makes fresh juice curdle cream is gone.
Pineapple purée
The blended flesh, much thicker than juice. Thin it with water to juice consistency, then use it one for one.
Storage
Fresh juice separates within the hour, so stir the jug before every pour, and it ferments within a day or two even refrigerated. A carton keeps to its date and belongs in the fridge once open, where it also loses its foam within a few days.
