I find the tinned pineapple rings too sweet and the fresh fruit distractingly acidic … and both rather fibrous.

Moore, Larousse and Godwin’s first version all use coconut milk, and Wilson and Godwin’s second an “elegant, cream-free version of the gaudy abomination for self-hating, lactose-intolerant cocktail pseuds”, coconut water, which the former claims gives the drink “a much lighter and more complex flavour”. The perfect blend of white rum and essence of real coconut will transport you to a tropical paradise, even when it’s raining outside.That said, without the cream of coconut, the drink does require some sweetening if it is to mirror the flavour of the original – Wilson’s version is disappointingly thin in flavour in comparison with Godwin’s one with sugar syrup.

I like it with lime juice, ice and a bit of sugar with a mint leaf on top for a lovely refreshing drink.

My score here is in relation to other flavoured rums I've tasted, which admittedly isn't a huge range - pineapple, banana, honeycomb. Victoria Moore hits the nail on the head in her book How to Drink: “At some point around the 1980s … piña colada stopped being a drink and became an excruciating razzmatazz of an event guaranteed to arrive at your table like a carnival float, in an obscenely large glass, decked with thrillingly garish paraphernalia such as a fuchsia paper parasol or six. Stir the coconut milk to make sure it hasn’t separated into water and cream, then add to the ice along with the rum and pineapple juice. Fellow bartender Dale DeGroff says the trick to making a great piña colada is to use both light and dark rum, Moore goes for the golden kind, telling readers to use “a richer, more aged rum if you like the sunny flavour to show through”, or “a white rum if you prefer the coconut and pineapple to dominate” – which is exactly what Larousse Cocktails, Food52 and Jason Wilson of the Washington Post opt for. My blender, despite bold claims of an ice function, is somewhat incompetent at breaking the stuff up, but I find a few stress-relieving whacks of a rolling pin works wonders (on the ice, not the blender, though sometimes I am sorely tempted) – and there really is no decent substitute.

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In any case, it seems a shame to use a mild-flavoured light rum – it has no chance against coconut and pineapple – but the dark one in DeGroff’s recipe feels too heavy for a drink that is crying out to be sipped on a sunlounger, so I’m going to use golden rum. Even with a mixer or in a cocktail for someone, I'd give them this over Malibu, but I personally prefer to sip my rums neat, and for me this ranks as one of the easiest sipping rums. I love the fact that it is so adaptable, have it with pineapple juice or just with some ice and cinnamon on its own!