Curaçao liqueur is traditionally made with the dried peels of the laraha. Laraha is a bitter orange native to Curaçao with the scientific nameCitrus × aurantium subsp. currassuviencis. Spanish explorers brought the bitter Seville orange to the island in 1527, the progenitor of the laraha. Although the bitter flesh of the laraha is unpalatable, the peels are pleasantly aromatic. It is unknown who developed the first Curaçao Liqueur and when. The Dutch West Indies Company took possession of Curaçao in 1634. The Bols distillery, founded in 1575 in Amsterdam, had shares in both the West and East India Companies to guarantee the access to spices required for their distilled drinks. The company maintains that Lucas Bols developed a laraha-based liqueur after the discovery that an aromatic oil could be extracted from the unripe peel of the otherwise useless bitter oranges. Bols then had this oil exported back to Amsterdam to produce a liqueur similar to current day Curaçao. Lucas Bols tended to add an "element of alchemical mystery" to his products, explaining the unlikely addition of a blue coloring. In 1912 Bols sold blue curaçao as Crème de Ciel, most likely a reference to the 1907 musical Miss Hook of Holland. Senior & Co, a company started in Curaçao, is the only company that has always produced its liqueur from the peels of the laraha. The family, Senior and Chumaceiro, started selling their liqueur in 1896 in their pharmacy in small quantities. In 1947 they bought the Landhuis Chobolobo in Willemstad, where the distillery has since been housed. As this company is the only one that uses laraha fruit from Curaçao, it includes the word "genuine" on its labels.
Preparation
To create the liqueur the laraha peel is dried, bringing out the sweetly fragranced oils. After soaking in a still with alcohol and water for several days, the peel is removed and other spices are added. The company Senior & Co uses a 120-year-old copper kettle for the distilling process. They put the peels in a gunny bag, spices are added and then hung in a heated copper still with 96% pure and kosher alcohol for 3 days. After 1 day cooling, water is added and distillation takes place for another 3 days. The liqueur has an orange-like flavor with varying degrees of bitterness. It is naturally colorless but is often given artificial coloring, most commonly blue or orange, which confers an exotic appearance to cocktails and other mixed drinks. The blue color is achieved by adding a food colorant, most often E133 Brilliant Blue. Some other liqueurs are also sold as Curaçaos with different flavors added, such as coffee, chocolate, and rum and raisin.
