Day 28: Azul y naranja

Smurfy

Today's drink the Pacific Sunshine is tequila, blue Curaçao, simple syrup, lemon juice, and bitters.  One of the first things we do when making a drink is choose which of our many liquors to use. We have quite a few tequilas so our choice was fraught with risk. We decided to use Tres Generaciones Plata tequila, one of our favorites.  According to their website it is “smooth and light with a clean tingle”.  I’ve been learning Spanish so I know that Tres Generaciones Plata translates to “Three Generator Plates”.  I’m not sure what generator plates have to do with tequila, but I do know that three generators will create a heck of a tingle.

The Pacific Sunshine is our first drink with blue Curaçao. Curaçao's main flavor component is orange. That isn't quite true as it is actually flavored with the peel of the laraha, which is a cousin of the orange.  Its secondary flavor is blue food coloring and it is finished off with a touch of cedilla.  As best as we can tell, the main reason to use blue Curaçao is to make your drink blue since there are plenty of other orange flavored liqueurs from which to choose.  Logic would dictate that normally you wouldn’t purposely make a drink that looks like Ty-D-Bol, but in some cases it makes sense.  The Pacific Sunshine is one of those cases.



Also confused by drink names



As you can tell from the picture, the drink looks just like the sun over the Pacific Ocean, which really is a lucky break considering the name.  I pointed this out to Mrs. Bottle and she congratulated me for discovering the obvious.  Sometimes her words hurt. I got over the bitter sting of Mrs. Bottle's reply and we focused on the drink. In addition to looking great, this drink tasted great.  It was slightly sweet and let you taste just a touch of the tequila with orange overtones.   The salt-rimmed glass was a nice touch, too, and the salt went well with the sweet drink. The only real flaw was that it didn’t fill the glass to the brim. It was so good that we added it to our (very short so far) best drinks list.

We haven't had that much luck with tequila drinks so far, but maybe this is a good sign.  Now if I can just figure out why a Tequila Sunrise is named what it is.

Overall Rating for the Pacific Sunshine

Taste: 5
Ease of Preparation: 2 - Slicing a lemon and salt rimming the glass? That is a lot of effort!
Presentation: 5
Drinks until blackout: 6 – 22% alcohol

Ingredients:

1.5 oz. Tequila
1.5 oz Blue Curaçao
.75 oz. Lemon Juice
.75 oz. Simple Syrup
1 dash Bitters