Queen Elizabeth’s “Virgin” Colada recipe from Shakespeare, Not Stirred

A piña colada with an Elizabethan twist, from Shakespeare, Not Stirred: cocktails for your everday dramas

It’s not easy being the most powerful person in all the land, especially when half of your subjects think they should be on top of you. Literally. But Queen Elizabeth knew how to enjoy her forty-five years as supreme monarch: by staying single. Shakespeare gives the Virgin Queen a shout-out in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the “fair vestal thronèd by the west” whom Cupid tries to shoot with his love arrow. And, after her death, he memorialized her virginity in Henry VIII by describing baby Elizabeth’s eternal purity: “a most unspotted lily shall she pass / To the ground.” Elizabeth understood that marriage would mean sharing her power. Plus, by never producing an heir she could get back at her father, Henry VIII. He obsessed about having a legitimate son and killed her mother, Anne Boleyn, when she couldn’t give him one. You want a little Mini-Me to take over the throne, Daddy? How about I end your bloodline altogether? Howdya like them apples? Well played, Bess. Well played. We don’t actually believe Elizabeth abstained all those years, so we’ve tossed out the cherry garnish and paired this virgin drink with a chaser of white rum.

Ingredients

3 cups crushed ice
1 cup fresh strawberries
1 cup pineapple juice
1⁄2 cup cream of coconut
2 ounces white rum (optional)
Extra strawberry, for garnish

Method

Fill a blender with the ice. Add the strawberries, pineapple juice, and cream of coconut. Blend until smooth. If adding rum, pour it into the blender and mix for a few more seconds. Garnish with a strawberry. Make like a minion and serve immediately.

Recipe from Shakespeare, Not Stirred: cocktails for your everyday dramas by Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim