Blue Hawaii Cocktail Recipe

Blue drinks get a foul rap nowadays. That’s a disgrace, as a result of the unique Blue Hawaii — a mixture of vodka, gentle rum, pineapple juice, blue curaçao, lime juice, and sugar — is a scrumptious cocktail. Although retro drinks from the Midori Bitter to the Cosmopolitan have made trendy comebacks, brilliant‑blue cocktails stay uncommon on severe bar menus, nonetheless perceived as only a bit too cheesy for contemporary tastes.

Invented in 1957 by Harry Yee, the legendary bartender on the Kaiser Hawaiian Village in Honolulu (now referred to as the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Seashore Resort), the Blue Hawaii was created after a gross sales consultant from Dutch distiller Bols challenged Yee to create a drink that includes blue curaçao, an orange liqueur that had change into central to the corporate’s portfolio. 

Yee stays some of the essential figures of the twentieth century in drinks and is intently related to the tiki cocktail motion. From his publish in Honolulu, the place he started bartending previous to Hawaii changing into a U.S. state, he turned a conduit for a lot of outsiders’ notion of drinks from the Polynesian Triangle. 

Paradoxically, most of Yee’s creations got here from his efforts making an attempt to manufacture a picture or synthetic feeling of a “Hawaiian cocktail.” Resort visitors usually requested for an area drink, although Yee later mentioned its native distilled spirit, okolehao, tended to be too robust for vacationers, and cocktails weren’t notably common amongst locals. So, Yee invented drinks to provide the general public what they wished — a vacationer dream of Hawaii in a glass — which later formed mainland People’ notion of drinks tradition on the Islands, primarily based on reality or not.

Past the Blue Hawaii, Yee contributed a number of different important cocktails to the tropical drinks canon, together with the Tropical Itch, Hawaiian Eye, and reportedly (although disputed by some) the Banana Daiquiri. Nonetheless, one in every of his most enduring legacies was because the bartender who popularized the miniature umbrella as cocktail garnish.

Why the Blue Hawaii nonetheless works

Ignore the colour for a second, and give attention to the components. The traditional Blue Hawaii follows an ordinary bitter template: blue curaçao provides sweetness whereas lime juice and pineapple juice deliver the acidic tartness that balances the drink. Vodka and rum are cut up, such that the impartial grain spirit tamps down rum’s earthy funk and permits the orange notes of the curaçao to come back by way of extra cleanly. 

Later riffs and imitations included components like cream of coconut (usually referred to as a “Blue Hawaiian” vs. a Blue Hawaii) or different tropical juices. However the unique Blue Hawaii is pretty easy regardless of its extravagant look — principally a slightly gentle spirit base, punched up with pineapple juice and notes of orange and lime. 

Yee did name for a couple of specifics, to make a correct Blue Hawaii. He insisted on Bols Blue Curaçao and favored a lightweight Puerto Rican rum. Although Yee’s unique recipe referred to as for an oz of “candy and bitter combine,” we’ve damaged this ingredient into its contemporary element components, utilizing equal-parts lime juice and easy syrup as a substitute.