Blue Curaçao
Orange curaçao with blue colouring added, and nothing else changed. The dye exists because blue is close to the only colour a drink cannot get from an ingredient, which makes it more useful than its reputation allows.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Sweet candied orange with a bitter-peel edge: triple sec’s flavour wearing a swimming-pool coat, the colour changing nothing on the palate.
Storage & Handling
Sealed and upright: sugar and dye keep for years, and the colour outlasts the party.
Usage
Poured at 15ml to 22.5ml wherever a triple sec would go and the glass needs to read blue. A single measure will tint a tall drink, so the pour should be judged on colour rather than on sweetness.
The Colour You Cannot Get From Fruit
Nature produces almost no blue food. Red, orange, yellow, green, purple and brown are all available from fruit, peel, herbs and spices, and blue essentially is not: the handful of blue foods that exist are rare, expensive or turn another colour on contact with acid. That is the honest case for blue curaçao. A bartender wanting a blue drink has no ingredient-led route to it, so the choice is a dye or no blue at all, and the liqueur is at least a dye attached to something that tastes of orange.
Butterfly Pea, the Alternative
The one natural blue with any currency behind a bar is butterfly pea flower, steeped as a tea or into a gin. It works, and it comes with a property that is either a feature or a problem depending on the drink: it is pH-reactive, turning purple and then pink as acid is added. In a gin and tonic that produces the colour-change trick people find delightful. In anything with citrus it means the blue does not survive the build, which is precisely when blue curaçao remains the only option.
It Tastes Like Orange Curaçao
The liqueur underneath is the same orange product, and blind tasting bears that out. The reputation problem is entirely about association, since blue drinks were the signature of a period of bartending most of the trade would rather forget. That is a fair reason to use it sparingly and a poor reason to pretend it is a different ingredient. Specced as a triple sec and balanced as one, it behaves exactly as one, and a drink is not worse for being blue.
Where It Belongs
Anywhere the colour is the point and the flavour would have been orange regardless. The Adios Motherfucker and the Boston Trash Can both use it that way. It also substitutes straight into a Margarita or a Sidecar if a blue version is wanted, with no rebalancing required. Sealed and upright it keeps for years, since sugar, alcohol and dye are all stable, and the colour will comfortably outlast any occasion it was bought for.
Top Tips
- Spec it as a triple sec. The colour is the only real difference, so balance the drink accordingly.
- Pour for the hue, not the sugar. One measure tints a whole tall drink.
- Buy the better bottles for flavour. Giffard and Pierre Ferrand carry more orange and less sugar.
Possible Substitutions
- Triple sec or orange curaçao plus a drop of blue: the flavour restored, the hue rebuilt
- Any orange liqueur, if the drink can forgive losing the blue
Production Method
Curaçao’s bitter laraha peel, dried and steeped into neutral spirit for its orange oils, then sweetened and dyed blue: the recipe of orange curaçao with food colouring the only addition. Bitterness and citrus survive the dye; the blue is cosmetic.
Common Questions
Is Blue Curaçao just blue triple sec?
Effectively yes. The liqueur underneath is the same orange product and the colouring is the only meaningful difference, so it can be specced and balanced exactly as a triple sec would be. The better bottles carry more orange and less sugar, as in any curaçao.
What does Blue Curaçao taste like?
Orange, because that is what it is. Bitter orange peel, sweetness and a citrus lift, in the same register as any curaçao. Blind, it is difficult to distinguish from the amber version, which is the point people find hardest to believe about it.
What cocktails use Blue Curaçao?
The Adios Motherfucker and the Boston Trash Can are the obvious ones, where the colour is doing the work. It also drops straight into a Margarita or a Sidecar if a blue version is wanted, with no rebalancing needed since it is orange liqueur underneath.
Is there a natural blue alternative?
Butterfly pea flower, steeped as a tea or infused into gin. It is genuinely blue and it is pH-reactive, turning purple and then pink as acid arrives. That makes it a fine colour-change trick in a gin and tonic and useless in anything containing citrus.
Featured In These Cocktails
Often Used With
Guide by Jerry Can Spirits