Vodka · Tiki & Tropicals · Creamy
Chi-Chi Recipe
A Piña Colada gone vodka — same frosty pineapple-coconut blend, lighter and cleaner on the finish. Creamy and coconut-sweet with pineapple's tartness cutting through underneath — cold, frothy and built for a hot afternoon rather than a slow sip.
- Prep Time
- 1.5 min
- Method
- Blended
- Glass
- Hurricane glass
- Strength
- Light
Every recipe on Sipped Right is tested for taste and balance before it's published.
Last updated October 20, 2026
About the Chi-Chi
The Chi-Chi is a Piña Colada built with vodka in place of rum — same pineapple juice and cream of coconut, blended the same way, just with a cleaner, more neutral spirit underneath. It's widely traced to Hawaiian resort and beach-bar menus of the early 1970s, created for guests who wanted the same frosty, tropical sweetness without rum's more assertive flavour up front. Several accounts point to Waikiki specifically, with one commonly repeated version crediting a bar called the Chinchilla Room as the drink's home; others tie it more loosely to the broader tiki-bar scene that Don the Beachcomber helped popularize on the mainland decades earlier. As with many tiki-era drinks, the exact bar and bartender are harder to pin down than the drink's overall era and purpose — a vodka-friendly Piña Colada for the resort crowd.
Vodka, pineapple juice and cream of coconut blend at roughly 1.5:4:1 — pineapple juice alone makes up well over half the pour, with vodka and cream of coconut as smaller, closely matched supporting parts. It's the exact ratio logic of a Piña Colada, just with vodka standing in for rum: swap the spirit back and you're looking at the original drink this one is built from.
Ingredients
- Vodka1 ½ oz
- Pineapple juice4 oz
- Cream of coconut1 oz
- Pineapple wedge, for garnish1 wedge
- Cocktail cherry, for garnish1
Method
- Measure and pour the vodka, pineapple juice and cream of coconut into the blender.
- Add a scoop of crushed ice to the blender.
- Blend for 15 seconds, until smooth.
- Pour the cocktail into a hurricane glass.
- Cut a pineapple wedge.
- Garnish with the pineapple wedge and a cocktail cherry.
Glass & Garnish
Hurricane glass, poured straight from the blender with no separate ice added — the crushed ice blended into the drink keeps it thick and frosty on its own without watering it down further. The glass's tall, flared shape shows off the pale, opaque cream-and-pineapple colour and comfortably holds the full blended volume. Garnish with a pineapple wedge on the rim and a cocktail cherry dropped in. Neither adds new flavour — both echo ingredients already in the glass, working as a familiar visual shorthand for a frozen, tropical drink rather than a flavour component.
Notes
Scales well for a party — blend fresh in batches per round rather than pre-mixing, so it doesn't separate or lose its frosty texture.
Tools Used
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FAQ
- How do I scale a Chi-Chi up for a party?
- Use the servings control above to scale the vodka, pineapple juice and cream of coconut evenly, then blend fresh in batches per round of drinks — pre-blending the whole batch ahead of time causes it to separate and lose its frosty, just-blended texture by the time it's poured.
- Can I use coconut cream instead of cream of coconut?
- Not directly — cream of coconut, like Coco Lopez, is already sweetened and much thicker than coconut cream, which is unsweetened. Swapping one for the other flattens both the sweetness and the texture, so add sugar or simple syrup to compensate if that's your only option.
- Does the vodka brand matter in a Chi-Chi?
- Not much — a clean, neutral vodka is really all this drink calls for, since pineapple juice and cream of coconut do almost all the flavour work here. Save a more distinctive, flavoured, or premium vodka for a drink where the spirit itself is meant to stand out.
- What's the difference between a Chi-Chi and a Piña Colada?
- Only the spirit changes — a Chi-Chi swaps the Piña Colada's rum for vodka while keeping the same pineapple juice and cream of coconut, blended the same way. The result is the same frosty, tropical drink with a cleaner, more neutral finish instead of rum's flavour.
- What garnish does a Chi-Chi need?
- A pineapple wedge on the rim and a cocktail cherry dropped in are the standard finish. Both echo ingredients already inside the glass rather than adding new flavour — a familiar, unmistakable signal that this is a frozen, tropical drink.
- Where does the Chi-Chi cocktail come from?
- It's widely traced to Hawaiian resort and beach bars in the early 1970s, created as a lighter, vodka-based alternative to the rum-heavy Piña Colada for guests who wanted the same tropical sweetness without rum's more assertive flavour up front.
