Pale, creamy pineapple and coconut at the bottom, a bright blue cloud drifting through the top: the Swimming Pool is one of the few drinks named after exactly what it looks like. Under the show it is a smooth, dessert-like colada with a little more backbone from vodka.
¾ oz
vodkae.g. Absolut · Smirnoff · Grey Goose · Ketel One · Belvedere
¾ oz
white rume.g. Bacardi · Havana Club · Plantation · Don Q · Flor de Caña
¾ oz
cream of coconut sweetened cream of coconut
¾ oz
cream
2 oz
pineapple juice
¼ oz
blue curaçao poured on top at the ende.g. Bols · Marie Brizard · Giffard · DeKuyper
Garnish: Pineapple wedge and cocktail cherry · Ice: Crushed ice
Swimming Pool
Sweet pineapple and coconut, a rich creamy texture and a light orange note from the curaçao. Medium strength, soft and dessert-like.
The Swimming Pool is widely credited to the Munich bartender Charles Schumann, who is said to have created it around 1979, a few years before he opened his own bar, Schumann's, in 1982. He later included it in his book American Bar, which made the recipe known to a generation of German bartenders.
The drink is clearly related to the Piña Colada, sharing its pineapple, coconut and rum base, but adds vodka and cream and replaces the pure white look with a float of blue curaçao. It became a fixture on cocktail menus in German-speaking countries in the 1980s and 1990s, where it is still much better known than in English-speaking markets.
It is generally credited to Charles Schumann in Munich, around 1979.
The Swimming Pool adds vodka and cream and is finished with blue curaçao. The Piña Colada uses only rum, cream of coconut and pineapple.
Yes: replace the spirits with more pineapple juice and use a non-alcoholic blue syrup for the colour.
The perfect sound
Blue water, sunshine and pure holiday.
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