Cold Drinks for a Cold War: Piña Coladas, Puerto Rico, and the Making of America’s Caribbean Bulwark

When the Piña Colada, a blended mix of rum, lime, coconut, and pineapple juices, first became a mainstay at the Caribe Hilton Bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1954, it signaled a changing of the times. Amidst this tropical backdrop, Puerto Rico was undergoing a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization heralded as “Operation Bootstrap.” This economic prosperity flooded the island with American businesses, consumer goods, and significantly increased the standard of living for ordinary Puerto Ricans. Along with these changes came taste. As relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba continued to sour throughout the 1950s, American palates craved sweetness. After World War II, prepackaged and heavily processed food along with cloyingly sweet fruit juices dominated American advertising and existed in abundance. Thus, the Piña Colada dashed onto the Post-War cocktail scene at a fortuitous moment when economic prosperity tasted sweet. From the perspective of U.S. policymakers, Puerto Rico economic prosperity served larger hemispheric aims, especially as Cold War tensions rose. Puerto Rico had long been viewed by the foreign policy establishment as a bridge to establishing good relations with Latin American and the Cold War provided the opportune moment to actually commit to fortifying its Caribbean bulwark to combat communism. This paper examines the Piña Colada as an artifact of postwar economic prosperity in Puerto Rico. I argue that the Piña Colada functioned as a symbol which influenced U.S. policymakers to perceive economic stability on the island and thus propped up Puerto Rico as the Caribbean bulwark against communism.