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Five bottles of orange liqueur differ in base, strength and colour more than in fruit.
All of them take their flavour from orange peel, and all are liqueurs in UK law: at least 100 grams of sugar a litre and 15% ABV. What separates them is what the peel goes into, how strong the bottle is, and whether anything has been added for colour. What is a liqueur sets out the law.
The orange liqueurs side by side: makers’ own figures where published, otherwise Wikipedia, a secondary source
Triple sec
- Made on
- Neutral spirit
- Strength
- About 15 to 40% ABV
- Sugar
- At least 100 g/L; weaker bottles usually sweeter
- Colour
- Clear
- Written for it
- Margarita, Sidecar, White Lady, Kamikaze
Cointreau
- Made on
- Neutral spirit
- Strength
- 40% ABV
- Sugar
- 22.5g per 100ml, by the producer’s figures
- Colour
- Clear
- Written for it
- Cosmopolitan, Corpse Reviver No. 2, Long Island Iced Tea
Dry orange curaçao
- Made on
- Neutral spirit, partly brandy in some
- Strength
- About 40% ABV; sweet styles nearer 25%
- Sugar
- Less than the sweet styles
- Colour
- Amber
- Written for it
- Mai Tai, Pegu Club, El Presidente
Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge
- Made on
- Cognac, with a distilled orange liqueur
- Strength
- 40% ABV
- Sugar
- Not published; a touch, in the producer’s words
- Colour
- Amber
- Written for it
- Grand Margarita, B-52
Blue curaçao
- Made on
- Usually neutral spirit
- Strength
- About 20 to 25% ABV
- Sugar
- Usually more than a 40% triple sec
- Colour
- Blue, from food colouring
- Written for it
- Drinks that need the colour
| Bottle | Made on | Strength | Sugar | Colour | Written for it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Triple sec | Neutral spirit | About 15 to 40% ABV | At least 100 g/L; weaker bottles usually sweeter | Clear | Margarita, Sidecar, White Lady, Kamikaze |
| Cointreau | Neutral spirit | 40% ABV | 22.5g per 100ml, by the producer’s figures | Clear | Cosmopolitan, Corpse Reviver No. 2, Long Island Iced Tea |
| Dry orange curaçao | Neutral spirit, partly brandy in some | About 40% ABV; sweet styles nearer 25% | Less than the sweet styles | Amber | Mai Tai, Pegu Club, El Presidente |
| Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge | Cognac, with a distilled orange liqueur | 40% ABV | Not published; a touch, in the producer’s words | Amber | Grand Margarita, B-52 |
| Blue curaçao | Usually neutral spirit | About 20 to 25% ABV | Usually more than a 40% triple sec | Blue, from food colouring | Drinks that need the colour |
Curaçao is named after an island and its bitter orange.
Orange curaçao takes its name from Curaçao, the Caribbean island. Wikipedia’s article on curaçao, a secondary source, says Spanish explorers brought the bitter Seville orange there in 1527, and on the island it became the laraha, a fruit too bitter to eat with a peel that is strongly aromatic. Dried and steeped in spirit, that peel is the original flavour of the liqueur.
Who first made it is not known. By the same account, Bols credits Lucas Bols, who died in 1719, with a laraha liqueur. Senior & Co, on the island, distils in a copper still dating from 1896 and says real curaçao is made with the laraha, which grows only there.
Most curaçao is now made elsewhere from bitter orange peel in general, and the useful split is dry against sweet. A dry curaçao at about 40% seasons rum and brandy drinks with bitter peel; a sweet one, often nearer 25%, brings more sugar for less alcohol.
Triple sec is a clear style, and nobody agrees what sec means.
Triple sec is a clear orange liqueur on neutral spirit, flavoured with sweet and bitter peel. Sec is French for dry, and the name is disputed: triple distillation, three kinds of peel and three times the flavour of the old curaçaos have all been offered. In law it is not dry at all; like any liqueur it carries at least 100 grams of sugar a litre.
Two French houses claim the style. Combier, in Saumur, says Jean-Baptiste and Josephine Combier invented it there in 1834, as Wikipedia reports; Cointreau dates its house to 1849, and Wikipedia gives 1875 for its triple sec. Combier’s date is the house’s own, and by Wikipedia’s account several distillers were showing a curaçao triple sec at the Paris Exposition of 1878.
Under the one name, strength runs from about 15% to 40% ABV, and a weaker bottle usually brings more sugar for its alcohol. The label tells you which you have.
Cointreau is a triple sec at 40% ABV.
Cointreau is a triple sec made in Angers from sweet and bitter orange peel, distilled in copper alembics by its maker’s account. It is 40% ABV, and the producer’s nutrition figures give 22.5 grams of sugar per 100ml.
So Cointreau or triple sec in a recipe means any triple sec at 40%, Cointreau included. Between the Sheets, the Breakfast Martini, the Jasmine and the Champagne Punch give both names on one line, and the Cosmopolitan, the Long Island Iced Tea and the Corpse Reviver No. 2 name Cointreau alone. With a weaker bottle, trim the measure by about 5ml and taste.
Grand Marnier is cognac and orange, and in law it is a liqueur.
Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge was created in 1880 by Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle, who combined French cognac with a distilled orange liqueur and a touch of sugar, and the house says the recipe has not changed. Wikipedia gives it as 40% ABV, and it is amber.
It contains brandy, and it is not a brandy: the sugar and the orange liqueur make it a liqueur in law, which is why recipes set it beside Cointreau rather than cognac. The cognac shows as weight, oak and a darker colour.
The Grand Margarita takes 30ml with 45ml of blanco tequila and 15ml of lime, and the B-52 floats 15ml on Irish cream. Where the orange should stay behind the spirit it takes over, so pour about 5ml less than the triple sec measure.
Blue curaçao is orange liqueur with a dye in it.
Blue curaçao is orange liqueur coloured with a food dye. The dye adds nothing to the taste, which is sweet orange with a little bitter peel.
Most blue bottles are 20 to 25% ABV, about half the strength of a 40% triple sec and usually sweeter, so a swap changes the balance as well as the colour. Mixed with orange or pineapple juice it turns green, because blue and yellow make green.
Each classic was written for one of them.
The sours were written for triple sec. The IBA’s Margarita is 50ml of tequila, 20ml of triple sec and 15ml of lime. Wikipedia’s article on the Sidecar says the first printed Sidecar recipes, in Vermeire’s and MacElhone’s books of 1922, were equal parts cognac, Cointreau and lemon; the IBA now gives 50ml, 20ml and 20ml with triple sec.
The White Lady is recorded by Wikipedia as MacElhone’s, made in 1919 on crème de menthe and switched to gin in 1929. The Kamikaze takes 22.5ml of triple sec with vodka and lime.
The rum drinks lean on curaçao: the house Mai Tai takes 15ml against 60ml of rum, lime and orgeat, and the Pegu Club 22.5ml with gin and lime as its only sweetener.
Swap by strength first, then by base.
Swap by strength first and base second. Cointreau and a 40% triple sec are interchangeable; a dry curaçao makes a sour rounder, which suits rum and brandy; Grand Marnier belongs where brandy would; blue curaçao is there for colour. Understanding cocktail balance explains why the sugar in each bottle moves the drink.
The facts here come from the producers and the record.
The liqueur rule is Regulation (EC) No 110/2008, Annex II, category 32, as retained in UK law and read on legislation.gov.uk on 12 October 2026. The Cointreau, Grand Marnier and Combier facts are from the producers’ own sites, the specifications from the IBA, and the curaçao, triple sec, Sidecar and White Lady histories from Wikipedia’s articles on curaçao, triple sec, the Sidecar and the White Lady, which are secondary sources, all read the same day.