Booze Reviews: Curacao of Curacao
Ok, what's so damn special about Curacao? Nothing. Usually. Almost all Curacao you're going to find on the market is emulating an old bitter orange liqueur that was originally made on the island of Curacao which is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Here's how it came to be:
A long, long time ago on a continent far, far away, the Spaniards landed on the the Island of Curacao with some orange trees and thought, "This looks like a good place to grow some fuckin' oranges". Well, they were wrong. DEAD WRONG. Well, ok, maybe nobody died but the orange trees they tried to plant didn't produce the kind of citrus fruit we all know and love to use for making screwdrivers. What it did produce is some greenish oranges that were really fuckin' sour. Of course, nobody wanted to eat these oranges so the Spainiards, those outrageous "moustachioed gentlemen", gave up on their Creamsicle dreams. Luckily, the industrious people of Curacao saw the potential of those ugly little orange trees and over time learned how to make booze out of them!
Those crazy Spaniards and their enviable moustaches.
What they created was a sweet, yet slightly bitter, orange liqueur that had a very distinct flavor and would eventually find a place in many classic cocktails. Over time corporations realized that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference if they just used some random orange and bitter-ish flavors, dyed their liquor blue, and called it "curacao." As a result, every single bottle you find today that bears the name "curacao" bears no resemblance to the original, except for one. Curacao of Curacao is the only curacao on the market today that is actually made from the same oranges those crazy Spaniards planted so long ago. It even comes in that weird blue color, if that's what you're into.
The taste is orange, yes, but it's a different kind of orange than you've ever tasted before. Growing oranges on the Island of Curacao was a dismal failure but what it left was a very unique little orange that none other artificially flavored curacao can match. This is one of my favorite bottles of liqueur because it is truly unique and not many people have even heard of it. I can't really describe it accurately words but when you taste it, you'll know.
Here's the thing: most people have been drinking counterfeit curacao for so long that when you replace the fake curacao in a drink with Curacao of Curacao it's naturally going to taste a little different. If you want to know what was so special about those classic cocktails that used curacao, you need to use this. I'm extolling these virtues because I do not want this liqueur to die. If it goes then the world loses its ties to the original flavors and we will never get them back. Dramatic? Yes. But, you know what else is extinct? The Stegosaurus. Seriously! Don't you wish you could ride a Stegosaurus? Me too! AND IF THOSE GODDAMN SPANIARDS HADN'T KILLED THEM ALL THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE.
Curacao of Curacao A+ $25 Expensive, but worth it to save an endangered species of booze.
