Best Coco de Agua Recipe

Coconut comes in two forms, but coconut cocktails typically only engage with one of them. That’s where the Coco de Agua comes in. It’s a market opportunity.

If you’re looking at a cocktail menu and you see “coconut” as one of the ingredients, you will invariably be met with something thick, sweet, and creamy: Piña Colada, Painkiller, this sort of thing. And that’s fine—those are delicious—but what about the other side of coconuts? Beyond the milky richness, there is of course coconut water: Light, delicate, nutty, and slightly sweet, nature’s perfect hydration, packed full of electrolytes and generally affirming of life. Where’s the cocktail for that?

There aren’t many, and there’s a good reason: Coconut water stubbornly refuses greatness in cocktails. There is, of course, a popular local solution, which is to cut open a coconut and pour some rum in there (or scotch, in a bizarrely popular variation), and that can be quite good, but it’s not really a cocktail, per se. The problem is that coconut water is quiet, but insistent, so it’s a bit of a tightrope; as an ingredient it’s a lot like green grapes, living in the netherworld of being insufficiently neutral to blend, but insufficiently flavorful to carry. But like green grapes with the Enzoni, there is an answer to this liquid riddle—an answer so simple it’s staring us in the face—and it’s called the Coco de Agua.

The Coco de Agua emerged at roughly the same time as its creamy cousins, first printed in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The South American Gentleman’s Companion in 1951. Baker had perhaps the best job of the 20th century, which was to travel the world, eat and drink delicious things, and then write about how he had done so. He had published an initial book to this effect, the hugely successful The Gentleman’s Companion in 1939, for which the second book is a kind of sequel: In the first, he traveled the globe, but in the second, he limits himself to the Spanish-speaking world, filling a whole book with, as he put it, “a personally tested regiment of lively Latin liquid masterpieces from greater and lesser ports and cities of South America.”

The Coco de Agua is one of these, a concoction Baker came upon in Belém, Brazil, on Marajó Bay just in from the country’s northern coast. It is a rum and coconut Tom Collins, essentially, or a Mojito in which the mint is replaced with coconut water: White rum, lime, sugar, and fresh coconut water, shaken up and topped with a splash of soda. It is the other kind of coconut cocktail—clean, precise, and devastatingly refreshing. If a Piña Colada is a Hawaiian shirt, garish and lurid, then the Coco de Agua is a white linen suit—still rum, lime, and coconut, but clean and fitted. Dignified, even.

Baker goes out of his way to mention how elemental the drink is, “possible to all readers who live in southern Florida, or any tropical region where you find coconuts… It is simple to do.” Change any single detail of the drink, though, and watch it fall apart—it is exactly the right fit for coconut water to slide into the canon of classic cocktails. Yes, it is simple. Great ideas often are.

Coco de Agua

Combine everything except the soda in a cocktail shaker, and shake with ice for six to eight seconds. Strain into a tall glass over fresh ice, and add a splash of soda, stirring gently to integrate. Garnish with a lime wheel and/or a mint sprig.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Light Rum: Neutrality is prized here: You can go as rich and funky as Planteray 3 Star, but no funkier—your garden variety white rum from a Spanish-speaking country will work great, like Flor de Caña, Ron Matusalem, Don Q, or even Bacardi. Note that “light rum” here doesn’t mean no age, it means no color, i.e. translucent, like water (many white rums are aged, then charcoal filtered to remove color, and those work great).

Also, most recipes you find use 2 oz. rum in the above build. I think this is too much rum for only 0.5 oz. of lime and simple, and it’s a bit too dominant. Plus, a gently lower-proof drink respects the mid-day refreshingness of the use-case. 

Other Spirits: You might think—“if neutrality is so valuable, why don’t I just use vodka?” Because it’s terrible. Without the light tropical boost from rum, the coconut water is flat and dull and honestly a little gross. You may know someone who hates coconut water, and has absorbed the internet opinion that “it tastes like water that’s been in someone else’s mouth.” That’s what the Coco de Agua with vodka tastes like to me. And I love coconut water.

The only other spirit that’s even semi-acceptable is aged/dark rum, which is… fine. Honestly, if all I had was aged rum, I’d make something else.

Simple Syrup: Equal parts sugar and water, and stir until the sugar dissolves. Using hot water makes the dissolving happen faster. If you really don’t want to make simple syrup you can use white sugar if you want to, just make sure to stir it with the lime/coconut water so it dissolves before you shake (0.5 oz. simple syrup = 2 tsp white sugar).

See Also

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Coconut Water: As high quality as you can get. Right from the coconut is ideal. If you’ve read this far I’m sure you have a favorite, mine is Harmless Harvest.

Soda: This is just to give a little life to the palate, and is honestly optional. I like it, but it doesn’t add too much.

Garnish: Conventional wisdom is to use mint, which works. I find it distracts a bit more than it adds, but it’s still pretty good.