These Five Hacks Will Help You Master The Blue Curacao In Your Home Bar
The deep hues in a blue lagoon or a blue Hawaii with their seductively bold qualities introduce a very appealing quality in cocktails that turns them into visual sensations. It is the curacao, the secret ingredient introducing the blue colour in the drink that adds a lot of zesty and spiky flavours to cocktails. Made from the dried peel of the laraha citrus fruit, blue curacao has been used widely as a liqueur in tropical cocktails to give them an added oomph in terms of their flavour and appearance. The drink tastes quite similar to an orange liquor and can be crafted in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic variations according to your mixology needs.
A lot of times, mixology workshops dispense with the recipe of the blue curacao because the store bought stuff works just fine. However, if you want to go the extra mile and put in some real effort into making your drinks, you can actually whip up a batch of blue curacao at home and store it away in bottles to be used every time you craft delicious tropical mixes. All you require is good quality vodka, dried citrus peels and some sugar—fairly staple ingredients to craft the citrusy liqueur. And while making the non-alcoholic version, you can simply substitute vodka with apple cider vinegar and sweet syrups like apricot and peach that would enhance the complexity of your mocktail game.
Here are some handy tips that you can put to use while making blue curacao at home:
Use Butterfly Pea Flowers
For the longest time, the blue in the curacao has been introduced as an artificial or added colour which gives this liqueur its oceanic feel. However, while making blue curacao liqueur at home, you can do away with artificial or food colouring and instead use butterfly pea flowers so their natural hues ooze into the drink introducing a slight textural enhancement along with a very organic colour. This blue curacao might seem faintly dyed but this too will appear just as inviting and fresh.
Use Vodka And Gin
While curacao liqueur is traditionally made using the laraha citrus and alcohol, in the homemade version, you can use premium distilled vodka to introduce a slightly more potent kick into the recipe. The addition of gin further augments the flavour profile of the liqueur by introducing herbal and floral notes that are inherent to the botanical spirit. Mixing vodka and gin for crafting the blue curacao would involve concocting a liqueur that is rather indulgent and quite strong.
Dried Citrus Peels
If procuring the laraha fruit seems difficult because you live far away from the Caribbean shores, you can craft your own version of curacao using the peels of oranges and orange zest. The peels have to be dried before adding to the liqueur so remove the outer coating of the fruits gently and leave it to dry in the sun. This will rid the peels of all moisture and bring out the bitterness which gives the curacao its distinctly tangy, sour and citrusy taste.
Use Cloves Generously
Every recipe to prepare the blue curacao at home will tell you to add cloves to your spirits and dried citruses so their spicy and intense notes ooze into the drink giving it quite an intense texture. So, when you next decide to bottle a batch of curacao, use cloves in a generous proportion because they introduce a lot of complexity into the liqueur to counteract the excessive bitterness in the citrus peels.
Prepare Infusions Separately
Making blue curacao involves adding citrus peels to alcohol so that their bitterness seeps into the spirits. The drink also requires lots of sugar meaning you need simple syrup to craft the curacao. Prepare the citrus infusions and the simple syrup separately instead of adding all the ingredients to one big pot. This ensures that the sugar is completely dissolved in the water and blends well with the flavoured liquor giving it a uniform sweetness without the hassle of muddling among the bitter peels.
