Cocolada

Nose: Coconut scented kitchen cleaning products. It's synthetic, metallic and smells generally unwholesome and unfit for human consumption. Palate: Simple syrup, wet cardboard, artificial coconut flavour, regret, despair, resignation and tears. Finish: Short. Indescribable. Vinyl, maybe? On a whim we picked up a bottle of this while shopping at our favourite liquor outlet yesterday. It was on special so ... science. This is a bottom shelf coconut flavoured beverage marketed by Pinnacle Drinks in Sydney. It's created specifically to undercut Malibu, and it makes Malibu seem like Caroni. Actually, this is below bottom-shelf quality - it sits on the floor. Obviously crafted from the cheapest of ingredients, rum is not mentioned on the label which instead states that it is a "wine-based beverage". As it sits at 21%abv this most likely means it contains food-grade ethanol diluted with cheap sweet white wine and water. The added flavourings are entirely synthetic and in meagre quantities (thankfully). They suggest you can drink this neat over ice *shudder*. Following the other "recipe" on the bottle we added coconut cream and pineapple juice to make a long drink. This produced an anaemic, uninteresting and mildly distasteful concoction that left us craving a proper cocktail. Fortunately we had the ingredients on hand to make a Pina Colada. The difference between the two drinks was of titanic proportions. Just ... say ... no. "Very Poor" : 55/100 (0.5 stars)