Vodka

Macadamia Nut Chi Chi

Name: Macadamia Nut Chi Chi
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Hurricane

The macadamia-nut variant of the Chi Chi, a vodka piña colada with a Hawaiian nut-liqueur layer.

vodka tiki hawaiian mid-century tropical coconut pineapple blended

Ingredients

fresh pineapple juice (4 oz)
cream of coconut (1 oz)
macadamia nut liqueur (0.25 oz)
vodka (1.5 oz)
crushed ice (1 cup)
pineapple wedge (1)
maraschino cherry (1)

The Chi Chi (#84 in this corpus) is the basic three-ingredient form most bars pour today: vodka, pineapple, cream of coconut. The Macadamia Nut Chi Chi adds a quarter-ounce of macadamia nut liqueur (Trader Vic's bottled their own from c. 1971 onward) to give the drink a toasty, buttery nuttiness that the cream of coconut alone can't provide.¹ Because the macadamia liqueur ingredient did not exist commercially before c. 1971, the variant is necessarily a 1970s-or-later creation rather than a Donn Beach 1960s original. The structural difference matters: where the basic Chi Chi is a coconut-pineapple cooler, this version is closer in profile to a tropical Brandy Alexander, with the macadamia liqueur supplying both depth and a faint orgeat-like roundness.²

Brand recommendations. Best: Tito's Handmade or Ketel One vodka, Trader Vic's Macadamia Nut Liqueur (the canonical bottling for this drink), Coco López cream of coconut, fresh-pressed pineapple juice or Ceres pure pineapple. Economical: Smirnoff or Sobieski vodka, Trader Vic's Macadamia (already an economical liqueur, no real substitute, Frangelico hazelnut is the closest workaround), Coco López (still the value pick, accept no substitute), Dole canned pineapple juice.

Instructions

In a blender combine fresh pineapple juice, cream of coconut, macadamia nut liqueur, vodka, and crushed ice.
Blend on high speed until smooth and slushy, about 15 seconds.
Pour into a chilled hurricane glass or large goblet.
Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a maraschino cherry.

Sources

"Macadamia Nut Chi Chi." PUNCH. https://punchdrink.com/recipes/macadamia-nut-chi-chi/ (accessed 2026-05-03), frames the drink as "a tiki original with versions attributed to Polynesian forebears Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic"; the attribution between the two is not definitively settled, and the macadamia-nut-liqueur Donn-build claim should be read against the simpler Chi Chi (#84) of broader 1970s pop circulation. ↩
Berry, Intoxica! (2002), Chi Chi entries, Berry's documentation of the Chi Chi family. Any specific "Donn-side macadamia-nut version" attribution should be read against Trader Vic's Macadamia Nut Liqueur's c. 1971 commercial availability. ↩