Coconut rum substitutes

The best all-round substitute because it rebuilds both halves of what coconut rum is: cane spirit and sweet coconut. The split ratio also keeps the drink at roughly the strength the recipe intended.

Best for

pina colada, Bahama mama, Malibu bay breeze, coconut mojito, frozen cocktails, punch

Cream of coconut, the Coco Lopez style sweetened kind, is thick and opaque, so the drink comes out creamier and cloudier than one made with Malibu, which is clear. In a pina colada that is an improvement. In a bay breeze, which is meant to look pink and clean over ice, it turns the glass milky and slightly separates, so shake it hard or use the syrup version below instead. The coconut flavour is richer and more genuinely coconut-like than the candied note of the liqueur.

The version to use when the drink needs to stay clear. It matches Malibu's sweetness, its strength and its bright artificial-leaning coconut note more closely than anything else.

Best for

Malibu bay breeze, sea breeze variations, coconut and pineapple highballs, punch, jello shots

This is a very close match, arguably closer than the cream of coconut route, because Malibu's coconut flavour really is a clean sweet extract note rather than the full nutty richness of coconut flesh. The catch is that coconut extract is potent and goes soapy if you overdo it, so add it a few drops at a time and taste. Use a 1:1 simple syrup, not a rich 2:1, or the drink will be cloying.

Bacardi Coconut, Cruzan Coconut, Koloa Coconut and various supermarket own-label coconut rums all sit in the same slot, and any of them will do the job.

Best for

any recipe calling for Malibu, pina colada, tropical cocktails, shots

Strength varies a lot and it matters. Malibu is 21 percent and heavily sweetened; Bacardi Coconut is around 35 percent and much drier. Swapping the drier ones in 1:1 gives a noticeably stronger, less sweet drink, so add a teaspoon of simple syrup per 1 ½ oz to bring it back into balance. Going the other way, using Malibu where a recipe expects a drier coconut rum makes the drink sweet enough to taste like sunscreen.

For a mocktail, this is the honest answer, and it works better than most alcohol-free swaps because coconut rum was mostly flavour and sugar to begin with.

Best for

virgin pina colada, coconut lemonade, mocktail punch, iced coffee, kids' tropical drinks

You lose the alcohol's warmth and its slight drying bite, so the drink is sweeter and softer and tastes more like a fruit cooler than a cocktail. A quarter ounce of lime juice and a dash of bitters, if bitters are acceptable to you, restores a lot of the structure. Bottled coconut syrup from a coffee-syrup line is already very sweet, so cut any other sugar in the recipe.

The bare-cupboard option. You get the rum backbone and the right strength, and you accept that there will be no coconut in the drink.

Best for

punches with pineapple or orange juice, daiquiri variations, drinks with coconut milk already in them

Halving the volume is the important part, since matching 1 ½ oz of 21 percent liqueur with 1 ½ oz of 40 percent rum nearly doubles the alcohol in the glass and makes a bay breeze undrinkable. The result tastes like a clean rum drink, sharper and boozier, with the tropical sweetness gone. If there is coconut milk or coconut cream elsewhere in the recipe, this swap barely shows.

A Barbadian rum liqueur at a similar low strength and similar sweetness level, which makes it a structurally correct swap even though the flavour is not coconut.

Best for

tiki cocktails, rum punch, Bahama mama, planter's punch

Falernum tastes of lime, clove, almond and ginger, so the drink goes from creamy-tropical to spiced and citrusy, which is a genuinely good cocktail but a different one. It works well in tiki drinks that already have pineapple and lime doing the heavy lifting, and badly in a pina colada, where coconut is the entire point.