For those of you who didn’t make your way here via this week’s roundup, it’s time again for Mixology Monday! Hosted this month by Gwen over at Intoxicated Zodiac, the theme of choice is orange—apropos for August, it being the month of the Leo and also the sign I find myself perched on the cusp of, being born at the tail end of July.

Generally speaking, those who know me will tell you that I have a contrary streak. It doesn’t manifest all the time, but if I’m feeling ornery and you tell me that bananas are yellow, I’m likely to tell you they’re purple. This month I had that reaction to the theme—not because I’m feeling ornery so much as that I knew, the theme being a color as well as a flavor, there were going to be a lot of orange glasses in this month’s roundup. I couldn’t bring myself to be so contrary as to post my first idea—documenting the carrot garnish pickling I have slated for this week—and calling it an orange post, so I went with the other riff on the theme: blue curaçao.

Curaçao, named after the island in the Netherlands Antilles, is an orange-flavored liqueur that is produced traditionally from the Larahas orange. The Larahas is a type of Valencia orange that developed on the island, which has such nutritionally poor soil that the sweet Valencias grew to be green and bitter—so bitter that most consider them inedible. Modern curaçao liqeuers are usually flavored and colored (and sweetened) artificially (including the usual orange-hued version and the wildly blue variety featured here), but the original method involved steeping the dried peels of the Larahas in alcohol for days to create varying degrees of the bitter, heavily orange flavor that the liqueur is known for. After soaking, the liquid was then blended with spices to create the clear liqueur known as curaçao.

1 ½ oz lime juice
1 ½ oz blue curaçao
½ oz Galliano
2 oz light Puerto Rican rum

Shake all ingredients well with ice cubes. Strain into a snifter filled with crushed ice.

This type of electric blue concoction is precisely the sort of beverage that kept me away from tiki bars (and cocktails) for so long. It is reminiscent of the “cocktail” renaissance of the ’80s that spawned movies like Cocktail and drinks like Sex on the Beach; in other words, while teenage girls the country over are apparently raiding the contents of my closet circa ‘89 (please, don’t bring back the French cuff!), there are parts of the ’80s I’m deadset against having resurge. They all include blue curaçao (and any cousin thereof—yeah, I’m looking at you, Apple Pucker).

Nevertheless, I do own a bottle, primarily because I have a great amount of respect for Beachbum Berry. If he uses it, and likes it enough to include it in his fabulous books, then it’s certainly good enough for the likes of me. Naturally, this is the reasoning that led me to his Grog Log and this recipe. All in all, I’ll say this is a pleasant drink. I was hesitant about the Galliano, but it rounds out the sweetness of the curaçao with a smooth and savory character, while both are cut by the tartness of the lime juice. The rum binds it all together so you get lots of orange aroma with the slight richness of the Galliano, backed by the bite of lime on the end.

I probably won’t run out and make it again, but orange we all glad that we have MxMo to help us expand our horizons? Look Ma, I’m punny!