How to Make Blue Curacao, Part One

When you’re basing cocktails recipes on famous environmental disasters, it often seems appropriate to make a Blue Drink. The blue itself is so unnatural, and there’s a whole string of associations there, too. The most famous Blue Drink is the Blue Hawaiian, which makes me think of Elvis, then Vegas, then the Nevada Test Site. Also, Hawaii, the U. S. military in the South Pacific, then Bikini Atoll, where we’re still doing damage control (although I read that the Spam and Coke are now causing a lot more health problems than the radioactivity.)

Anyway, the DeKuyper brand blue curacao that I have tastes really gross. I thought I could do better.

My first idea was that curacao was just an orange-flavored liqueur, so I’d buy some Grand Marnier or Cointreau and die it blue. But that stuff is expensive, about $40 for a fifth, so I went with plan B: A bottle of grain alcohol (about $15) and some oranges.

I peeled two oranges and a lemon and put the peels in a pint-sized mason jar. I filled it with grain alcohol (it’s called Clear Spring) and added a really old vanilla bean. For good measure I also added a splash of the bourbon that the bean had been resting in, and three or four teaspoons of sugar.

Two days later, I had a very powerful brew. It was a lovely orange color (see photo) and drunk straight, was almost painful. The booze burned, but not nearly so much as the long, bitter orange aftertaste.

So I added some water, and found that I had created a liqueur with louche: it turned from clear to opaque when water was added to it, just like absinthe does. But it still didn’t taste very good, even when I added more water and more sugar. Adding blue food coloring made it look pretty cool, but didn’t help the taste.

As a last resort, I decided to actually look up a recipe for curacao. It turns out that it’s flavored with the peels of the bitter laraha fruit, which grows only on the island of Curacao, off the north coast of Venezuela. Maybe it’s supposed to be that bitter? I don’t know, but I’ve got half a bottle of Clear Spring left, so I’m going to try again.

Cocktail Recipe: The North Pacific Gyre

The New York Times recently wrote about one of my favorite environmental nightmares, the islands of plastic trapped in ocean currents:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gyre&st=cse

If you want to be accurate, follow these proportions, but make your drink twice the size of Texas:

1 1/2 shots vodka

1 teaspoon honey

Pour into a large bucket type cocktail glass and stir well. Let the honey dissolve for a while (don't use ice cold vodka)

Crush some ice 

Add 2-3 shots of grapefruit juice and the crushed ice and stir

Run around the house in a swirling, whirlpool-like manner, collecting every small bit of plastic you can find, and cram it all into the glass

Top with soda

Cocktail Recipe: The Love Canal

Don protective clothing.

Add to shaker:

Ice

1 shot rye whiskey

1/3 shot Black Seal rum

small drizzle molasses

Shake well and strain into a martini glass

Cocktail Recipe: Three Mile Island Iced Tea

In a tumbler over ice pour:

1 shot bourbon

1/3 shot amaretto

1/3 shot blue Curacao

3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Squeeze in and add a wedge of lemon

Stir well

Top with seltzer

ANGA over LNG

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for LNG. Up in Astoria, a Clatsop County commissioner who supported LNG was recalled (pending a recount; she lost by only four votes). And the Oregon Department of Justice announced that it had enough evidence to convict a former Port of Astoria director of misconduct in the lease for the Skipanon Peninsula site — but he’s off the hook because of a statute of limitations.

However, the real blow to LNG comes from the natural gas industry itself.

A consortium called the American Natural Gas Alliance has started running ads that trumpet natural gas as the fuel of the future. And one of the best things about it, say the ads, is that we don’t have to import it.

I’m guessing that companies like Northwest Natural Gas and Pacific Gas & Electric, who are investing in infrastructure to import LNG, are pretty pissed off at ANGA (yes, that’s the acronym). According to the ads (and the website at http://www.newnaturalgas.org/) “we have more than 100 year’s worth of natural gas, right here in the States!”

The gist of the ads is that natural gas burns cleaner than coal (true enough), that it “makes solar and wind energy more viable,” and that there are such massive amounts of it buried right here in North American that we’ll never, ever, ever run out.

Strangely enough, I caught these ads from a motel room in Medford, Oregon, last night. It was the last night of my LNG-themed road trip. And the show I was watching, on CNBC, is called “American Greed.” 

Update: LNG cocktail

Regarding LNG Cocktail (see previous post): Turns out that even one is a bad idea. Euhck.

The LNG Cocktail

2 oz. Russian vodka

shake over ice until very, very cold

strain into a cold glass and top with sparkling wine

One may occasionally appear necessary.

Three is never a good idea.