In the August Sun

In the August Sun was created by Dan Watson, a bartender at Porco Lounge & Tiki Room in Cleveland, Ohio, and first published by the cocktail site PUNCH under its original name, Drunk in the August Sun. It reads on paper like a piña colada — pineapple, coconut, rum — but the build is engineered to be drier and funkier than any colada: overproof Wray & Nephew white rum and fino sherry both work against the coconut cream's sweetness instead of letting it dominate. Difford's Guide later listed the drink in its own directory under the shortened name, rebalancing the falernum and coconut cream slightly from Watson's original ratios.

A Drier Piña Colada, Cleveland-Style

Watson built the drink around a simple problem with the piña colada: cream of coconut is delicious and also relentlessly sweet. His fix was to bring in two dry, high-intensity ingredients to fight it rather than dilute it — overproof Jamaican pot-still rum for funk and heat, and fino or manzanilla sherry for a saline, nutty dryness that a straight rum base can't offer.

This isn't a Difford's-only recipe. PUNCH ran it as a named, credited drink and referenced it again in a separate feature on cooking with overproof rum, both times crediting Watson and Porco Lounge. Difford's Guide's version, which is what put the drink on tiki's radar for this site, trims the falernum and coconut cream down slightly from Watson's original 1:1:1:1:1/2 ratio — a modern-bar rebalancing of an already-documented drink, not an invented one.

The Spec

This build follows Difford's Guide's rebalanced ratios: overproof rum and fino sherry in equal measure, cut with falernum, pineapple juice, and a smaller pour of coconut cream than a standard colada would use.

Why overproof, specifically

A standard 40% rum gets buried under the coconut and pineapple. Wray & Nephew's 63% funk and heat push all the way through the drink instead of just adding alcohol — it's doing a flavor job, not just a strength job.

Fino sherry instead of more rum

Fino sherry's dry, slightly briny character is the other half of the trick: it reads almost savory next to the tropical fruit, which is exactly why the drink tastes like a colada's more serious older sibling rather than a straight copy.

Bottom Line

In the August Sun takes the most crowd-pleasing tiki drink there is and makes it for people who think piña coladas are a little much — funkier, drier, and still unmistakably tropical.