Blue Cocktails Are Coming Back, and They Are Delicious

Danny Meyer just launched his latest project, a rough-hewn, deep South-accented bar in New York’s west Chelsea, Porchlight, where he’s doling out bourbon bar nuts, cheddar corn bread, rye whisky, and homemade cola. One cocktail on his list is a standout: Gun Metal Blue, a smoky mezcal base with a rich citrus kick that also happens to be, well, blue. Porchlight isn’t alone. Among cocktail jockeys, blue curaçao is making as unlikely (and impressive) a comeback as Michael Keaton did in Birdman.

Take Alex Kratena, head bartender at the award-hogging Artesian in London. He regularly uses the colorful liqueur in his Wonka-like creations, like the gin-based Bubble Tea Blue Lagoon. (It involves green tea-infused blue curaçao and ponzu vinegar.) Or Jim Meehan, who reports that one of the top sellers at his beloved Manhattan speakeasy, PDT, is the pastel blue Shark, topped with a paper umbrella. San Francisco’s Dirty Habit combines gin, sherry, pineapple juice, and blue curaçao to make Son of the Beach, while the team at Kirkland Tap and Trotter near Boston uses its own house-made curaçao in the tequila-based Leaps and Bounds.