I accompanied my mom to a wedding in Boracay, which essentially meant that I spent a lot of money so that I could be slightly miserable outside Manila. I love traveling with my mom and her friends are generally cool, but after three days stuck in the Shangri La with no time to myself, I needed a drink, if only to get into my own space.

When we finally got the chance to go to White Beach, I said that I wanted to go to Jonah’s, hoping that my mom and her friends would think it too much of a ‘youngster’s place’ and not come along. They didn’t take the hint and followed anyway, but that didn’t stop me from ordering a piña colada shake in the middle of the afternoon.

Jonah’s Shake and Snack Bar in Station 1 is a Boracay institution, and serves the best shakes in the world. This is not an exaggeration. They have a long list of fresh fruit, cocoa, and dairy combinations, all of them extremely thick in a didn’t-scrimp-on-ingredients way. My favorite is the Avocado Shake, a mix of avocado, milk, and sugar. The texture of semi-melted ice cream, it’s both a thirst quencher and comfort food. This is normally my first choice, but it wasn’t the kind of comfort that I needed that day.

The Piña Colada Shake combines pineapple, my favorite fruit, and alcohol, which I severely needed to stop myself from going crazy. It was sweet, but didn’t mask the pineapple’s tartness, and enough alcohol to get just slightly off-center.

I also ordered the Jonah’s Seafood Taco, a giant taco shell packed with vegetables, cheese, and shrimp. It’s a weird pairing, I know, but the taco filled me up and took a bit of the edge off the alcohol.

I finished my shake, tipsy and in a considerably better mood, ready to endure another two days in one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.