Blue Drinks Get Classy

A Blue Ramos Gin Fizz, Anyone? Blue Zombie?

The Sacreblue, a blue Ramos gin fizz, at Rolo’s in Brooklyn.

In 2006, New Zealand bartender and liquor brand rep Jacob Briars was looking to let a little hot air out of the puffed-up balloon that was modern mixology. He was busy organizing the Cocktail World Cup competition in Queenstown and was in the company of a young bartender who obsessively ordered a Corpse Reviver No. 2 at every bar they went to. That 1930s drink—made of gin, lemon juice, curacao and Lillet, with an absinthe rinse—was one of the obscure potions of yesteryear that youthful mixologists had dug up—in this case, from Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book—and were promoting.

So when two whole cases of Blue Curacao arrived, instead of the two bottles he had ordered, Briars decided to punk this bartender. He whipped up a raft of Corpse Reviver No. 2’s with the stuff and passed them around, christening the “new” drink the Corpse Reviver No. Blue.

Intending the drink as a one-off joke, Briars was surprised to see it taken up by serious cocktails bars in New Zealand, Australia, England and, eventually, the United States. Today, it is considered a modern classic cocktail.

A Blue Zombie at Sunken Harbor Club.

That was the first salvo in the Blue Wars, the ongoing battle over whether serious cocktails should wear artificial or unnatural colors.