Stock Orange Curaçao

Curaçao is a generic category for orange liqueur, distilled and/or infused ("home made"). Origins are essentially Dutch, but became ubiquitous in the 19th Century. The name is taken—somewhat by accident due to the nature of colonial transatlantic shipping—from the tiny Dutch island colony in the Caribbean, but “curaçao orange peel” really just means the peels of Seville oranges, sometimes the unripe green ones which can offer a different flavor profile from the ripe fruit peels. Some of this fruit was indeed grown in and exported from the Caribbean, but evidently not the island of Curaçao. Contemporary commercial bottlings are typically simple, inexpensive orange liqueurs available in various colors but with similar flavor to one another, in neutral (or mostly-neutral) spirit base. Any specified color, such as “Blue Curaçao“, always denotes the addition of food coloring for visual effect. Without food coloring, distilled curaçao is naturally colorless; infused curaçao usually has some orange/yellow tinting from the citrus peels used during infusion. In terms of the original style of curaçao, the de facto benchmark in the US market is Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao. Curaçao evolved two branches beginning in the late 19th Century: one from brandy producers, who employed their aging stocks and attention to detail to produce high end curaçao exemplified by Grand Marnier (herein cumbersomely refered to as “orange-flavored liqueur with an aged brandy base”). The other branch was triple sec, a term for column-distilled curaçao that began when distilleries such as Cointreau set out to produce a highly refined liqueur built on neutral spirits. The “white curaçao” references found in recipes circa 1900-1940 can usually be presumed to mean triple sec. To make a simple, indeed crude, curaçao at home, infuse fresh and/or dried orange peels in pure grain alcohol for a period of days or weeks then dilute and sweeten to suit taste and purpose. (Recipes abound.) Note: some mid-20th Century books reference “brown curaçao”. Pending new information, this presumed to be an inexpensive curaçao with caramel coloring.