Blue Curacao
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If you guys have been following me on YouTube or Instagram, you know that I am obsessed with butterfly pea flowers. When I first got them, my very first idea was to try and make an all-natural Blue Curaçao. I don’t like using food coloring in my baking or liqueur making because honestly, it feels like cheating! There is also lots of very unnatural things in food coloring too that I would rather steer clear from.
You’ll need the following equipment:
Ingredients:
But who can resist those gorgeous blue cocktails?! They just look so fun and refreshing!
Now you can enjoy them without the thought of drinking aluminum! You will need to take some extra steps when crafting your blue drinks because these butterfly pea flowers are so sensitive to pH. At a neutral pH it will remain blue, but the more you lower the pH, it begins to turn pink. I think it makes this Curaçao more fun- you can impress your friends with color changing drinks!
Ideally Curaçao is made with the peels of Curaçao oranges, though it is not a requirement. Curaçao oranges are on the bitter side of the orange family and are not typically eaten fresh. I had some dried Curaçao orange peels from my Virgin Triple Sec Recipe. I used 1.5 tablespoons of the dried Curaçao and infused it into 6 oz of Everclear. This is going to take a while to infuse, essentially you are making orange extract. I let mine infuse for 3 weeks before removing the peels. The finished product has a bit of an orange tint to it and it smells very orangey.
I decided to do a blend between the orange infused Everclear and Brandy, but I wanted to add a little spice to it as well, so I infused the brandy with a couple of cloves for an hour and a half.
For the the blue portion of this Blue Curaçao, I am going to make a butterfly pea flower syrup. First, I will make some tea with the butterfly pea flowers. I added 10 butterfly pea flowers to my tea pot, then poured in about 1 cup of boiling water.
While the tea steeps, I’m going to add 1/2 cup of sugar to a jar. Once the tea has taken on a vibrant blue hue, about 3 to 5 minutes, I’m going to pour the tea over the sugar then stir it until the sugar has dissolved. Once this has cooled to room temperature, I’ll screw on the lid and place this in the refrigerator to cool completely.
Now that all of the Curaçao components are made, it’s time to combine them.
First, I’ll add the 6 ounces of my homemade Curaçao extract to my pitcher.
Next goes in the clove infused brandy, and then the Butterfly pea flower syrup.
The citrus in the orange peel shifted the pH to be a bit more acidic which causes the blue syrup to turn purple. To counter this, I’m going to add just a few drops of alkaline booster. I found that 4 drops is the magic number here. You can find these drops at a health food store or online.
They are made of sodium and potassium and have absolutely no discernible taste. I think its best practice to only add 1 drop at a time and stir. If you add too much, your Curaçao will actually turn green! If it does, you can always add a tiny bit of citric acid to correct, but the citric acid will add a little bit of flavor to the finished product.
Once the desired hue has been achieved, I’ll go ahead and bottle this up and let it bottle condition for a week. If you taste it right after making it, the clove kind of takes over, but as it sits, the orange flavor becomes much more dominant.
Blue Curaçao Recipe:
1.5 tbs Curaçao orange peels
6 oz everclear
2 oz brandy
8 cloves
1/2 cup of sugar
1 cup boiling water
Method:
Combine Everclear and orange peels and let infuse for 3 weeks. Strain out the orange peels.
Combine the brandy and cloves and let infuse for one and a half hours. Strain out the cloves.
Add boiling water and butterfly pea flowers. Let steep 3-5 minutes until it has become a deep blue color. Remove flowers and combine with sugar, stirring until sugar dissolves. Let cool to room temp, then store in the fridge to cool completely.
Combine all ingredients. Add 4 drops of alkaline booster 1 drop at a time and stir.
Bottle it up and let it rest for 1 week.
