Limonada de Coco: Colombian Coconut Lemonade

Name: Limonada de Coco (Colombian Coconut Lemonade)
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 small coconut (or 1½ cups tinned full-fat coconut milk, which skips steps 1 to 4); 2 cups ice (the drink is meant to be thick and frozen, so do not cut this back); 1 cup water; 6 or 7 ounces lime juice (lime, not lemon; about ¾ cup, from 6 to 8 limes); 3 to 5 tablespoons sugar (start at three and taste: it depends on the limes); 2 tablespoons heavy cream (this is what makes it pale and rounds off the acidity); Lime slices, to garnish

Fresh coconut milk blended with lime juice, ice, sugar and a little cream, until it comes out pale, thick and frothy. It is the drink of Cartagena and the Caribbean coast, sold everywhere in the old city. Made from a whole coconut, or from a tin in five minutes. Serves four.

Total: 30

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Limonada de coco is coconut milk blended with lime juice, ice, sugar and a spoonful of cream until it comes out pale, thick and covered in foam. It is the drink of Cartagena, sold from carts and cafés all over the walled city.

Made from a whole coconut it takes half an hour. Made from a tin of coconut milk it takes five minutes, and the difference in the glass is smaller than you would expect.

The shortcut, said plainly

The recipe below starts with a whole coconut, and steps 1 to 4 are entirely about turning it into coconut milk: peeling, roasting, cracking, washing, chopping, blending and straining.

You can skip all of it. Use 1½ cups of full-fat tinned coconut milk and begin at step 5. This is what most Colombian households abroad do, and it is not considered cheating.

One thing does matter: it has to be the tinned kind, thick and full fat. The cartons sold as coconut milk drink are mostly water with a little coconut in them, and they make a thin, pale imitation with no body at all.

If you are doing it properly

The odd-looking instruction in this recipe is roasting the coconut for four minutes before breaking it, and it is the most useful thing here.

Heat makes the shell and the flesh expand at different rates, so they separate. Knock a roasted coconut against something hard and the shell cracks away in pieces, leaving the white flesh behind. Try the same thing cold and you spend twenty minutes prising fragments of flesh off shell with a knife.

Drain the water out first, through the eyes at the top. Drink it or keep it; it is not used in this recipe.

When you blend the flesh, add only as much water as the blender needs to turn. Too much and you are diluting the coconut milk before you have even made it.

Lime, and how much

Six or seven ounces of juice, which is about three quarters of a cup, and takes six to eight limes depending on their size. It is a lot, and it is meant to be: this is a sharp drink underneath the coconut.

Lime, not lemon. On the Colombian coast limón means lime, and lemon against coconut reads floral and slightly soapy where lime reads clean.

Start the sugar at three tablespoons and taste before adding more. How much it needs depends entirely on how sharp the limes are.

The two tablespoons of cream

An odd thing to find in a lemonade, and it is doing three jobs at once.

It rounds off the acidity of all that lime. It pales the colour, which is why limonada de coco is off-white rather than translucent. And it stabilises the foam a little, so the drink holds its head for longer than it otherwise would.

Leave it out and you have a perfectly good coconut limeade. You just do not have this drink.

Blend it hard, serve it now

Two cups of ice go in, and they are structural rather than decorative. The blending breaks them down into a slush that gives the drink its thickness, so cutting the ice back gives you something watery.

Blend for a few minutes, longer than feels necessary, until it is smooth and there is a proper head of foam on it.

Then pour it immediately. The foam is fat, ice and acid held together by nothing much, and it collapses within a few minutes. If it has separated by the time you get to it, a few seconds back in the blender brings it round.

Other coastal drinks

Patillazo — the watermelon one, from Barranquilla.
Borojó juice — the thick one from the Pacific coast.
Coconut rice — the same coconut milk, put to savoury use.

Limonada de Coco FAQ

What is limonada de coco?

Coconut milk blended with lime juice, ice, sugar and a little cream, served thick and frothy. It is the signature drink of Cartagena and Colombia's Caribbean coast, sold on every corner of the walled city, and it is somewhere between a lemonade and a frozen cocktail without alcohol.

Can I use tinned coconut milk?

Yes, and most people outside the Caribbean do. Use 1½ cups of full-fat tinned coconut milk and start at step 5, which turns this into a five-minute recipe. What does not work is the carton coconut drink, which is mostly water and gives a thin, sad result.

Lime or lemon?

Lime. The Spanish says limón, which on the Colombian coast means lime, and it is the right choice regardless: lime is sharper and cleaner against coconut fat, while lemon brings a floral note that muddies it. You will need six to eight limes for the quantity here.

Why roast the coconut before cracking it?

Heat makes the shell and the flesh expand at different rates, so the flesh pulls away from the shell. Four minutes over medium-low heat, then a sharp knock against something hard, and the shell comes off in pieces instead of taking the flesh with it.

Why is there cream in a lemonade?

Two tablespoons, and it does more than it sounds. It softens the acidity of all that lime, pales the colour to the off-white that limonada de coco is supposed to be, and helps hold the foam. Without it the drink is sharper and looks grey.

Why did the froth disappear?

It always does, within a few minutes. The foam comes from blending fat, ice and acid together and it is not stable. That is why this is served immediately, straight from the blender into the glass. If it has separated, a few seconds more blending brings it back.

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