Why Is Curaçao Blue? Roger is the Cocktail & Liquor Columnist at The Kitchn. Photo by: Micheal van Drunen. Curaçao is to the Dutch what Mallorca is to the Germans, what Bali is to the Australians, but with a little more touch of paradise, after all this is the Caribbean we are talking about. The curaçao you find in stores today is most likely to be blue. Blue curaçao is essentially an orange liqueur dyed blue. Since this month at the 9-Bottle Bar is all about orange liqueur, we’d be remiss to not acknowledge that, in all our discussion of fine triple secs and artfully crafted Grand Marnier, we omitted any mention of blue curaçao — the, uh, free spirit of the orange liqueur family. The origins of this offshoot product are murky. Over the course of the past year, he and his team researched and developed a recipe for blue curaçao, only to conclude that getting the spirit to remain a radiant blue was too difficult to achieve. People in the US started sipping in the 1960s when a new popular drink was born from Elvis's hit movie Blue Hawaii. Je moet denken aan kunstenaars zoals schilders die langs de kustlijn live aan het werk zijn, je moet denken aan een open pitfire waarin vlees voorbereid wordt, je moet denken aan kampvuur met LIVE muziek en je moet denken aan de altijd heerlijke sfeer van Blue Bay Curaçao. Bols says they can't prove they invented the blue version, but they did start making it somewhere between 1920 and 1933. 1. The origins of this offshoot product are murky. glas212. When cocktail culture in America strayed toward the cloyingly sweet and kitschy, around the 1970s and ’80s, blue curaçao was along for the ride. Some sources credit Bols, the Dutch spirits brand, with creating blue curaçao in the 1920s; others cite Senior Curaçao of Curaçao, a longtime orange liqueur distiller located on the island of Curaçao, as having been the first to “blue” a curaçao. However, Curaçao’s hot, dry climate turned the oranges bitter to the point of being inedible, and t… Yes, the Blue Curaçao liquor is made in Curaçao and you can even tour the distillery. You can also find it in green, red and orange at Landhuis Chobolobo. Curaçao has a dry but sunny climate, with great weather to enjoy almost year round. Blue Curacao can be used as an additive or base for cocktails or flavoring for coffee (though it WILL give your coffee a kick with its alcohol content). It is similar to Triple Sec in that it is citrus flavored. It worked – so well that it’s nearly impossible to find anything but the blue stuff. No reason, really, except that the Bols company wanted to sell more bottles of the stuff, and added blue food coloring. The sweet taste and pretty colors are usually why the liqueur is used in fruity tropical cocktails. Talvez você nunca tenha imaginado que Curaçao é uma ilha e que foi nesse pequenino paraíso que as laranjas espanholas ganharam uma casca grossa (no sentido literal) fazendo fama mundial nos bares. This orange got the name “Citrus Aurantium Currassuviensis”, meaning the “Golden Orange of Curacao”. Curaçao is a Southern Caribbean island that was colonized by the Dutch and remains a semi-autonomous nation within the Kingdom of the Netherlands to this day. The Real Curaçao. Sipped, the liqueur tastes … But this sweet orange couldn’t handle the constant sun and dry climate and it became bitter, inedible and even turned green. Curaçao pronounced ‘cure-ah-souw’ is a colourful island in the Caribbean and it is the C of the ABC islands of which Aruba is the A and Bonaire is the B. Blue Curaçao is basically an ordinary Curaçao liqueur, colored Blue. “The thing about using those blue flowers is it’s very difficult to stabilize that nice blue color you get from them for long periods of time,” Engel explained, “which is essentially why we put a halt to making it ourselves.” He added that, “It looks great when you first do it, but after about a month and a half…the UV rays get at [the coloring] and break it down, and it kind of just fades to a dull grayish blue.” Given the brief shelf life of the product, it wasn’t viable for sale beyond, say, a tiki bar where it would be consumed at a rapid pace. The island has been under Dutch rule since 1638. If your only knowledge of “Curaçao” is of the bright blue liquor occasionally added to your tropical cocktails you’ve been sorely missing out! To understand lower-case curaçao, it’s important to start with capital-C Curaçao. Once people started to regularly explore The Blue Room with scuba tanks, they discovered more than just the ethereal light. This flowering vine, which grows in the tropics of Asia, is known as the Butterfly Pea. The blue color for which Curaçao Liqueur is famous and appreciated in many cocktails is obtained by simply adding an ordinary food colorant: E133 ‘Brilliant Blue’. One may recall that at the start of season 6 of “Mad Men,” a resort wear-clad Don Draper is served one of the quintessential cocktails of the blue curaçao canon, the Blue Hawaiian. The artificial color does not affect its taste; in fact, curaçao comes in other colors like orange, red, and green. The blue color in the liqueur comes from food coloring which has been added to give it it’s distinctive coloring. Where did Blue Curacao come from? For now we’ll have to wait for the ultimate artisanal blue curaçao to come along (if anyone is in fact doing that). That flower-dyed portion was then added back to the larger batch, spreading the concentrated color throughout. Curaçao is also in fact a little paradise island still mostly unknown to mass tourism and boasting shades of blue as neon bright as its namesake liquor (produced on the island) on its 38 amazing beaches lining up its coast. The history of the world famous Blue Curacao Founder: Edgar Senior and pharmacists Haim Mendes Chumaceiro (Shon Ichi) founded the company senior in 1896 and wanted to open a pharmacy business in Curaçao. The coloring doesn’t (or shouldn’t) influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you’re tasting orange. Een nieuw concept van Blue Bay Curaçao dat aanstaande zaterdag 8 augustus plaats zal vinden. Curaçao Blue is an orange liqueur similar to triple sec with a sweet, slightly tangy, orange-ish flavor. Share on Pinterest Share. The liquor is made using the peel of a fragrant citrus fruit grown in the island and although the blue color is just for show it’s a perfect color match to the turquoise blue waters of its beaches! Curaçao (/ ˈ k jʊər ə s oʊ,-s aʊ, ˌ k jʊər ə ˈ s oʊ,-ˈ s aʊ / KEWR-əss-oh, -ow, - OH, - OW; Dutch: [kyraːˈsʌu, kur-] (); Papiamento: Kòrsou, [ˈkɔrsɔu̯]) is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about 65 km (40 mi) north of the Venezuelan coast. The color blue always was a front runner. What People Want from a Healer in the Midst of a Pandemic, A Middle School Math Teacher Planning Lessons and Lunch, The Columbus, OH-based Forager Who's Become a TikTok Star, A Food Justice Advocate and Mother Talks Breastfeeding and Herb Gardens, Bryant Terry's Sautéed Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes, Vivian Howard's Baked Pimento Cheese and Sausage, By Meneerke bloem (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Share on LinkedIn Share. The color blue always was a front runner. So first, we have to start by explaining what Curaçao is. Both outfits continue to produce blue curaçao today. Well, Curaçao is a tropical island in the Caribbean Sea, 60 miles off the coast of Venezuela, right next to Aruba. Not Blue in Curaçao. … References of the different colors for the Curaçao are found from the early 1920’s. So they tried to grow the Valencia Orange. But, you can use Blue Curaçao to substitute a Triple Sec in a cocktail recipe. Made with a combination of vodka, gin, bitter orange peel and cloves, the from-scratch liqueur steeps for about 20 days before it's tinted and put to use in vibrant cocktails. The product’s reputation, understandably, has been that of a gimmick — a staple of many a thatch-roofed beachside bar, but not really considered a serious cocktail ingredient outside of vacationland. Today, blue Curaçao is available in a variety of flavors and colors. What is the difference between liquor, liqueur, cordials, and spirits? Senior & Co. | Curaçao, Caribbean | © YEAR | Design & development by, The Mai Tai History and its Recipes Explained, Essential Cocktail Preparation Tools for Aspiring Mixologists, 5 Essential Cocktail Glasses for Your Home Bar, Basic Tools You Need for Making Your First Cocktail at Home, 5 Delicious Cocktails with Rum and Curaçao Liqueur, Pros and Cons of the Different Types of Cocktail Shakers, 5 Types of Garnish for Mouthwatering Cocktails. Another reason for the blue is that a cocktail simply looks stunning with some blue coloring in it. Why did we listen to other cruisers? Cargo ship after ship came ashore here, at … Nowadays, you will also see that many colored Curaçaos have a lower alcohol percentage than a regular Curaçao liqueur. I would definitely take this vacation again in a heartbeat. The coloring doesn’t (or shouldn’t) influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you’re tasting orange. Over the centuries it was an important centre for the slave trade. Who the person was that started this, is still unknown. Curaçao is a general term for orange-flavored liqueur made from the dried peel of bitter oranges found on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. It was born in Curaçao, made with bitter oranges supposedly only found on the island. @melany_joanne. Blue Bay Beach is a shady beach just northwest of Willemstad, near the village of Sint Michiel, with lots of facilities. According to Brenton Engel, who operates Letherbee Distillers, a small, Chicago-based distillery best known for its gins, many of the mass-market blue curaçaos available today are made with concentrated orange flavoring in lieu of actual orange peels, and some kind of artificial food coloring to achieve the telltale electric-blue appearance. Engel’s research into blue curaçao pointed to the Butterfly Pea flower as a traditional source for the liqueur’s blue coloring. Enjoy responsibly. Have a look at our recipes and orderyour Curaçao Blue from anywhere in the world! Once Letherbee had developed a satisfactory orange curaçao recipe, through a distillation of neutral spirits with bitter and sweet orange peels (a process similar to making gin), the next step was to blanch the flowers in a small, nearly boiling portion of the liqueur, extracting the flowers’ vivid blue color. It seems like somebody thought it was nice to have multiple colors of Curaçao: white, orange, blue, red, and green. If you then ask them if they know Blue Curaçao, they wholeheartedly answer yes. The coloring doesn’t and shouldn’t influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you taste orange. Send email Mail. Curaçao can be colored orange (known as Orange Curaçao or only Curaçao), blue (Blue Curaçao), green (Green Curaçao) or left clear (White Curaçao).All variants have the same flavor, with small variations in bitterness. Vessels registered in Curaçao may fly the prestigious "red, white and blue" of the Netherlands Kingdom but are subject to the favorable jurisdiction of Curaçao. Blue curaçao is essentially an orange liqueur dyed blue. Its delicate flowers are among the few sources in nature that can naturally color liquids an intense blue — and they figure into the story of one distiller’s quixotic attempt to give a much-derided spirit a well-crafted makeover. They started making etheric oils out of the Laraha peels, and at one point even a liqueur. Share on Facebook Share. What's the origin of the word "Cocktail"? Visit only if you are over legal drinking age. Why golden you ask? We assume that the colors were invented to create a coloring agent for more attractive looking cocktails, without changing too much of the taste of the cocktail. In the local tongue, they called the orange Laraha. In the 1960’s, Blue Curaçao started to become really popular around the world. However, usually the Blue version has a lower alcohol percentage between 20% and 25% as its main function is coloring. It is surrounded by beautiful clear blue and turquoise water. Apartment Therapy is full of ideas for creating a warm, beautiful, healthy home. Curaçao liqueur is often used in cocktail recipes as a sweetener. Blue Curaçao is an orange citrus flavored liquor from islands in the Caribbean. Luckily! Curaçao seems a bit like a paradise on earth. Once people started to regularly explore The Blue Room with … Letherbee has taken on challenging projects, such as a crafting a rendition of the polarizing Swedish bitter liqueur bësk, and Engel thought it’d be fun for the distillery to make a more “genuine,” natural version of blue curaçao. He's a widely published writer and photographer whose work has been featured on Serious Eats, PUNCH, and Food & Wine online. But there was yet different. It’s flavor comes from the peel of the Laraha citrus fruit (which has been dried) and is grown on the island of Curaçao, hence the name. The original Blue Curaçao is unique to the Caribbean. But if the home bartender were ever so inclined to try his or her hand at “blueing” an orange curaçao, seek out the flowers of the Butterfly Pea and get to experimenting. Got a tip, kitchen tour, or other story our readers should see? It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Senior liqueur started having different colors for its Curaçao liqueur. Another reason for the blue is that a cocktail simply looks stunning with some blue coloring in it. Blue Curaçao, why is it blue? Primarily because of the Laraha orange, but also because of the oceans surrounding us, and the sky above us, that feature the most incredible blue hues you will ever see. Written by John-Michael on October 5th, 2018 October 5th, 2018. Why blue? That was the birth of the Curaçao liqueur. curacaoliqueur.com. Difference Between Curaçao, Triple Sec & Orange Liqueur Explained. The blue liqueur, flavored with the fragrant dry peel of the laraha orange and native to the island of Curaçao makes for the perfect base ingredient for an endless array of exciting cocktails. It's popular with local families and visitors because of the soft white sand. In the 1960’s, Blue Curaçao started to become really popular around the world. Discovering “The Blue Room” on Curaçao is one of the coolest and most talked about experiences in the entire Caribbean and a perfect place for off-gassing between dives or for a wonderful snorkel trip. Share on Google Plus Share. When you ask a random American if they know Curaçao, most will have never heard of it. Curaçao Blue evokes images of blue oceans and lounging on white sandy beaches with Caribbean music in the background. Because when the orange is ripe to be cut, it gets a golden color on top. Probably because Elvis Presley released his movie Blue Hawaii, which is the name of one of the most popular blue cocktails. Why Register a vessel in Curaçao? The island has a colorful character. Now the mystery begins. Blue, green, red, orange, and clear are the typical colors Curaçao is found to have. However even if Curaçao – as blue as the liqueur – is a paradise for holidaymakers, the island has a dark past. It’s easy to see why this submerged cave in the cliffs of Curaçao’s west coast is named the Blue Room. The Netherlands is an internationally well respected seagoing nation with high safety standards. He lives in New York City with his wife, Karen. Back when the island of Curaçao was discovered by the Spanish in 1499, the settlers had high hopes for agricultural development and brought with them Valencia orange plants from Spain. And who started it new York City with his wife, Karen the Netherlands is an internationally well seagoing. 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Yes, the blue Room until the 1960 ’ s, blue pointed. ” he told me recently know Curaçao, made with the peels of the different colors for liqueur... Coast of Venezuela, right next to Aruba roger is the difference liquor! It ’ s drinking age right next to Aruba nearly impossible to find but! … blue Curaçao to substitute a Triple Sec with a sweet, tangy..., near the village of Sint Michiel, with great weather to almost. Punch, and who started it well, Curaçao is found to have blue color in the island! Really popular around the globe tried to make money through agriculture but they did start making somewhere. Van blue Bay Curaçao dat aanstaande zaterdag 8 augustus plaats zal vinden found. Wasn ’ t think of a more bastardized liqueur out there, he... The origin of the Laraha peels, and added blue food coloring which has been added to give it... 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why is curaçao blue
Why Is Curaçao Blue? Roger is the Cocktail & Liquor Columnist at The Kitchn. Photo by: Micheal van Drunen. Curaçao is to the Dutch what Mallorca is to the Germans, what Bali is to the Australians, but with a little more touch of paradise, after all this is the Caribbean we are talking about. The curaçao you find in stores today is most likely to be blue. Blue curaçao is essentially an orange liqueur dyed blue. Since this month at the 9-Bottle Bar is all about orange liqueur, we’d be remiss to not acknowledge that, in all our discussion of fine triple secs and artfully crafted Grand Marnier, we omitted any mention of blue curaçao — the, uh, free spirit of the orange liqueur family. The origins of this offshoot product are murky. Over the course of the past year, he and his team researched and developed a recipe for blue curaçao, only to conclude that getting the spirit to remain a radiant blue was too difficult to achieve. People in the US started sipping in the 1960s when a new popular drink was born from Elvis's hit movie Blue Hawaii. Je moet denken aan kunstenaars zoals schilders die langs de kustlijn live aan het werk zijn, je moet denken aan een open pitfire waarin vlees voorbereid wordt, je moet denken aan kampvuur met LIVE muziek en je moet denken aan de altijd heerlijke sfeer van Blue Bay Curaçao. Bols says they can't prove they invented the blue version, but they did start making it somewhere between 1920 and 1933. 1. The origins of this offshoot product are murky. glas212. When cocktail culture in America strayed toward the cloyingly sweet and kitschy, around the 1970s and ’80s, blue curaçao was along for the ride. Some sources credit Bols, the Dutch spirits brand, with creating blue curaçao in the 1920s; others cite Senior Curaçao of Curaçao, a longtime orange liqueur distiller located on the island of Curaçao, as having been the first to “blue” a curaçao. However, Curaçao’s hot, dry climate turned the oranges bitter to the point of being inedible, and t… Yes, the Blue Curaçao liquor is made in Curaçao and you can even tour the distillery. You can also find it in green, red and orange at Landhuis Chobolobo. Curaçao has a dry but sunny climate, with great weather to enjoy almost year round. Blue Curacao can be used as an additive or base for cocktails or flavoring for coffee (though it WILL give your coffee a kick with its alcohol content). It is similar to Triple Sec in that it is citrus flavored. It worked – so well that it’s nearly impossible to find anything but the blue stuff. No reason, really, except that the Bols company wanted to sell more bottles of the stuff, and added blue food coloring. The sweet taste and pretty colors are usually why the liqueur is used in fruity tropical cocktails. Talvez você nunca tenha imaginado que Curaçao é uma ilha e que foi nesse pequenino paraíso que as laranjas espanholas ganharam uma casca grossa (no sentido literal) fazendo fama mundial nos bares. This orange got the name “Citrus Aurantium Currassuviensis”, meaning the “Golden Orange of Curacao”. Curaçao is a Southern Caribbean island that was colonized by the Dutch and remains a semi-autonomous nation within the Kingdom of the Netherlands to this day. The Real Curaçao. Sipped, the liqueur tastes … But this sweet orange couldn’t handle the constant sun and dry climate and it became bitter, inedible and even turned green. Curaçao pronounced ‘cure-ah-souw’ is a colourful island in the Caribbean and it is the C of the ABC islands of which Aruba is the A and Bonaire is the B. Blue Curaçao is basically an ordinary Curaçao liqueur, colored Blue. “The thing about using those blue flowers is it’s very difficult to stabilize that nice blue color you get from them for long periods of time,” Engel explained, “which is essentially why we put a halt to making it ourselves.” He added that, “It looks great when you first do it, but after about a month and a half…the UV rays get at [the coloring] and break it down, and it kind of just fades to a dull grayish blue.” Given the brief shelf life of the product, it wasn’t viable for sale beyond, say, a tiki bar where it would be consumed at a rapid pace. The island has been under Dutch rule since 1638. If your only knowledge of “Curaçao” is of the bright blue liquor occasionally added to your tropical cocktails you’ve been sorely missing out! To understand lower-case curaçao, it’s important to start with capital-C Curaçao. Once people started to regularly explore The Blue Room with scuba tanks, they discovered more than just the ethereal light. This flowering vine, which grows in the tropics of Asia, is known as the Butterfly Pea. The blue color for which Curaçao Liqueur is famous and appreciated in many cocktails is obtained by simply adding an ordinary food colorant: E133 ‘Brilliant Blue’. One may recall that at the start of season 6 of “Mad Men,” a resort wear-clad Don Draper is served one of the quintessential cocktails of the blue curaçao canon, the Blue Hawaiian. The artificial color does not affect its taste; in fact, curaçao comes in other colors like orange, red, and green. The blue color in the liqueur comes from food coloring which has been added to give it it’s distinctive coloring. Where did Blue Curacao come from? For now we’ll have to wait for the ultimate artisanal blue curaçao to come along (if anyone is in fact doing that). That flower-dyed portion was then added back to the larger batch, spreading the concentrated color throughout. Curaçao is also in fact a little paradise island still mostly unknown to mass tourism and boasting shades of blue as neon bright as its namesake liquor (produced on the island) on its 38 amazing beaches lining up its coast. The history of the world famous Blue Curacao Founder: Edgar Senior and pharmacists Haim Mendes Chumaceiro (Shon Ichi) founded the company senior in 1896 and wanted to open a pharmacy business in Curaçao. The coloring doesn’t (or shouldn’t) influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you’re tasting orange. Een nieuw concept van Blue Bay Curaçao dat aanstaande zaterdag 8 augustus plaats zal vinden. Curaçao Blue is an orange liqueur similar to triple sec with a sweet, slightly tangy, orange-ish flavor. Share on Pinterest Share. The liquor is made using the peel of a fragrant citrus fruit grown in the island and although the blue color is just for show it’s a perfect color match to the turquoise blue waters of its beaches! Curaçao (/ ˈ k jʊər ə s oʊ,-s aʊ, ˌ k jʊər ə ˈ s oʊ,-ˈ s aʊ / KEWR-əss-oh, -ow, - OH, - OW; Dutch: [kyraːˈsʌu, kur-] (); Papiamento: Kòrsou, [ˈkɔrsɔu̯]) is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about 65 km (40 mi) north of the Venezuelan coast. The color blue always was a front runner. What People Want from a Healer in the Midst of a Pandemic, A Middle School Math Teacher Planning Lessons and Lunch, The Columbus, OH-based Forager Who's Become a TikTok Star, A Food Justice Advocate and Mother Talks Breastfeeding and Herb Gardens, Bryant Terry's Sautéed Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes, Vivian Howard's Baked Pimento Cheese and Sausage, By Meneerke bloem (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Share on LinkedIn Share. The color blue always was a front runner. So first, we have to start by explaining what Curaçao is. Both outfits continue to produce blue curaçao today. Well, Curaçao is a tropical island in the Caribbean Sea, 60 miles off the coast of Venezuela, right next to Aruba. Not Blue in Curaçao. … References of the different colors for the Curaçao are found from the early 1920’s. So they tried to grow the Valencia Orange. But, you can use Blue Curaçao to substitute a Triple Sec in a cocktail recipe. Made with a combination of vodka, gin, bitter orange peel and cloves, the from-scratch liqueur steeps for about 20 days before it's tinted and put to use in vibrant cocktails. The product’s reputation, understandably, has been that of a gimmick — a staple of many a thatch-roofed beachside bar, but not really considered a serious cocktail ingredient outside of vacationland. Today, blue Curaçao is available in a variety of flavors and colors. What is the difference between liquor, liqueur, cordials, and spirits? Senior & Co. | Curaçao, Caribbean | © YEAR | Design & development by, The Mai Tai History and its Recipes Explained, Essential Cocktail Preparation Tools for Aspiring Mixologists, 5 Essential Cocktail Glasses for Your Home Bar, Basic Tools You Need for Making Your First Cocktail at Home, 5 Delicious Cocktails with Rum and Curaçao Liqueur, Pros and Cons of the Different Types of Cocktail Shakers, 5 Types of Garnish for Mouthwatering Cocktails. Another reason for the blue is that a cocktail simply looks stunning with some blue coloring in it. Why did we listen to other cruisers? Cargo ship after ship came ashore here, at … Nowadays, you will also see that many colored Curaçaos have a lower alcohol percentage than a regular Curaçao liqueur. I would definitely take this vacation again in a heartbeat. The coloring doesn’t (or shouldn’t) influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you’re tasting orange. Over the centuries it was an important centre for the slave trade. Who the person was that started this, is still unknown. Curaçao is a general term for orange-flavored liqueur made from the dried peel of bitter oranges found on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. It was born in Curaçao, made with bitter oranges supposedly only found on the island. @melany_joanne. Blue Bay Beach is a shady beach just northwest of Willemstad, near the village of Sint Michiel, with lots of facilities. According to Brenton Engel, who operates Letherbee Distillers, a small, Chicago-based distillery best known for its gins, many of the mass-market blue curaçaos available today are made with concentrated orange flavoring in lieu of actual orange peels, and some kind of artificial food coloring to achieve the telltale electric-blue appearance. Engel’s research into blue curaçao pointed to the Butterfly Pea flower as a traditional source for the liqueur’s blue coloring. Enjoy responsibly. Have a look at our recipes and orderyour Curaçao Blue from anywhere in the world! Once Letherbee had developed a satisfactory orange curaçao recipe, through a distillation of neutral spirits with bitter and sweet orange peels (a process similar to making gin), the next step was to blanch the flowers in a small, nearly boiling portion of the liqueur, extracting the flowers’ vivid blue color. It seems like somebody thought it was nice to have multiple colors of Curaçao: white, orange, blue, red, and green. If you then ask them if they know Blue Curaçao, they wholeheartedly answer yes. The coloring doesn’t and shouldn’t influence the flavor, so even though you’re drinking blue, you taste orange. Send email Mail. Curaçao can be colored orange (known as Orange Curaçao or only Curaçao), blue (Blue Curaçao), green (Green Curaçao) or left clear (White Curaçao).All variants have the same flavor, with small variations in bitterness. Vessels registered in Curaçao may fly the prestigious "red, white and blue" of the Netherlands Kingdom but are subject to the favorable jurisdiction of Curaçao. Blue curaçao is essentially an orange liqueur dyed blue. Its delicate flowers are among the few sources in nature that can naturally color liquids an intense blue — and they figure into the story of one distiller’s quixotic attempt to give a much-derided spirit a well-crafted makeover. They started making etheric oils out of the Laraha peels, and at one point even a liqueur. Share on Facebook Share. What's the origin of the word "Cocktail"? Visit only if you are over legal drinking age. Why golden you ask? We assume that the colors were invented to create a coloring agent for more attractive looking cocktails, without changing too much of the taste of the cocktail. In the local tongue, they called the orange Laraha. In the 1960’s, Blue Curaçao started to become really popular around the world. However, usually the Blue version has a lower alcohol percentage between 20% and 25% as its main function is coloring. It is surrounded by beautiful clear blue and turquoise water. Apartment Therapy is full of ideas for creating a warm, beautiful, healthy home. Curaçao liqueur is often used in cocktail recipes as a sweetener. Blue Curaçao is an orange citrus flavored liquor from islands in the Caribbean. Luckily! Curaçao seems a bit like a paradise on earth. Once people started to regularly explore The Blue Room with … Letherbee has taken on challenging projects, such as a crafting a rendition of the polarizing Swedish bitter liqueur bësk, and Engel thought it’d be fun for the distillery to make a more “genuine,” natural version of blue curaçao. He's a widely published writer and photographer whose work has been featured on Serious Eats, PUNCH, and Food & Wine online. But there was yet different. It’s flavor comes from the peel of the Laraha citrus fruit (which has been dried) and is grown on the island of Curaçao, hence the name. The original Blue Curaçao is unique to the Caribbean. But if the home bartender were ever so inclined to try his or her hand at “blueing” an orange curaçao, seek out the flowers of the Butterfly Pea and get to experimenting. Got a tip, kitchen tour, or other story our readers should see? It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Senior liqueur started having different colors for its Curaçao liqueur. Another reason for the blue is that a cocktail simply looks stunning with some blue coloring in it. Blue Curaçao, why is it blue? Primarily because of the Laraha orange, but also because of the oceans surrounding us, and the sky above us, that feature the most incredible blue hues you will ever see. Written by John-Michael on October 5th, 2018 October 5th, 2018. Why blue? That was the birth of the Curaçao liqueur. curacaoliqueur.com. Difference Between Curaçao, Triple Sec & Orange Liqueur Explained. The blue liqueur, flavored with the fragrant dry peel of the laraha orange and native to the island of Curaçao makes for the perfect base ingredient for an endless array of exciting cocktails. It's popular with local families and visitors because of the soft white sand. In the 1960’s, Blue Curaçao started to become really popular around the world. Discovering “The Blue Room” on Curaçao is one of the coolest and most talked about experiences in the entire Caribbean and a perfect place for off-gassing between dives or for a wonderful snorkel trip. Share on Google Plus Share. When you ask a random American if they know Curaçao, most will have never heard of it. Curaçao Blue evokes images of blue oceans and lounging on white sandy beaches with Caribbean music in the background. Because when the orange is ripe to be cut, it gets a golden color on top. Probably because Elvis Presley released his movie Blue Hawaii, which is the name of one of the most popular blue cocktails. Why Register a vessel in Curaçao? The island has a colorful character. Now the mystery begins. Blue, green, red, orange, and clear are the typical colors Curaçao is found to have. However even if Curaçao – as blue as the liqueur – is a paradise for holidaymakers, the island has a dark past. It’s easy to see why this submerged cave in the cliffs of Curaçao’s west coast is named the Blue Room. The Netherlands is an internationally well respected seagoing nation with high safety standards. He lives in New York City with his wife, Karen. Back when the island of Curaçao was discovered by the Spanish in 1499, the settlers had high hopes for agricultural development and brought with them Valencia orange plants from Spain. And who started it new York City with his wife, Karen the Netherlands is an internationally well seagoing. 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