How To Make A Blue Hawaii

There are any number of reasons why you might not want to drink a Blue Hawaii. First off, it’s blue - and not a natural sort of blue like blueberries or blue corn. Second, it sounds like something you’d drink while discussing your line of work with a family of tourists in Waikiki. But when you get down to it, this drink - which was invented by Harry Yee in 1957 - is a pretty standard sweet/sour cocktail that shares a lot of characteristics with something like a Margarita. When made correctly, it’s also objectively delicious, and we’d like to stress the fact that drinking a blue drink is a rewarding and exhilarating experience on par with parasailing or leaving your home for the first time in several days.

The Blue Hawaii

You’ll Need:

• Ice

• Highball

• 1.75 ounces rum

• 1.5 ounces pineapple juice

• .75 ounce lime juice

• .5 ounce blue curaçao

• 2 ounces seltzer

Step One: Lime Juice

A typical Blue Hawaii doesn’t call for lime juice (it uses sour mix), but it’s no longer 1957, and it’s fair to say that tastes have changed. So we’re going to add lime juice to this drink in order to balance out the sweet elements and add some extra zip. Locate a lime, juice it, and add .75 ounce to your cocktail shaker.

Step Two: Pineapple Juice

Pineapple is the dominant flavor in a Blue Hawaii - but if you add too much, you’ll feel like you’re just drinking blue pineapple juice. That’s why we’re going to scale the typical measurement back to 1.5 ounces. Fresh pineapple juice is obviously ideal (because fresh juice is always better), but canned or bottled juice works as well. Pour 1.5 ounces into your cocktail shaker.

Step Three: Blue Curaçao

What makes a Blue Hawaii blue? That would be blue curaçao. If you don’t know what that is, it’s just an orange liqueur with blue coloring, and you can find it hiding in a corner of most liquor stores. Put .5 ounce in your cocktail shaker.

Step Three: Rum

Ideally, you’ll add a bright, fresh, grassy white rum to this cocktail - something like Rhum. J.M. or Flor de Caña. But you can use any type of white or gold rum for this Blue Hawaii - it’ll make you happy no matter what. Add 1.75 ounces rum to your cocktail shaker.

Step Four: Shake

Add 5 or 6 ice cubes, and shake for around 15 seconds. After that, strain your cocktail into a highball filled with ice. It won’t fill your glass all the way to the top, and that’s 100% intentional.

Step Five: Seltzer

Finally, top your drink with roughly 2 ounces of seltzer. This will lighten this cocktail, give it some fizzy texture, and help make it the sort of thing you can drink back-to-back-to-back. Garnish with a pineapple wedge, a cherry, or a lime wheel, and stick a little umbrella in the top to complete the magical effect of this cocktail that looks like pool water and tastes like a Saturday afternoon.