Blue Hawaiian
White rum, blue curaçao, pineapple and cream of coconut, blended. A Piña Colada that went to the beach in 1957 and came back blue.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Put a hurricane glass in the freezer.
Add the rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, cream of coconut and lime to a blender with about a cup of ice.
Blend until smooth, 15 seconds.
Pour into the glass and garnish with a pineapple wedge and a cherry — and the umbrella, if you have one.
A thoughtful finish
- Blue curaçao is just orange liqueur with dye, so buy a decent one; the cheap bottles are mostly sugar and taste of it.
- A little lime is not in most recipes and makes every one of them better.
- For the shaken Blue Hawaii — Harry Yee's original — drop the cream of coconut, add half an ounce of vodka and an ounce of lemon-and-sugar, and shake.
Common mistakes
- Confusing it with the Blue Hawaii. One has coconut and is blended; the other is shaken and sharper. Decide which you want.
- Too much blue curaçao. Three-quarters of an ounce is plenty for colour; more makes it syrupy.
- Blending it thin. It wants the Piña Colada's thickness.
A few good questions.
Blue Hawaii or Blue Hawaiian?
Blue Hawaii is Harry Yee's 1957 shaken drink with vodka and sweet-and-sour; Blue Hawaiian is the blended, creamy variant. This page is the Blue Hawaiian.
What does blue curaçao taste like?
Orange. It is triple sec with food colouring. The drink is a coconut-pineapple-orange drink that happens to be blue.
Can I make it without a blender?
Shake it hard and serve over crushed ice; it will be looser but just as blue.
Why the umbrella?
Harry Yee started putting paper umbrellas in drinks in the late 1950s because the previous garnish — a sugarcane stick — left guests' hands sticky. The umbrella is his.
Variations
- Piña Colada — The same drink without the blue.
- Blue Lagoon — Vodka, blue curaçao and lemonade.
- Mai Tai — The other great Hawaiian-associated rum drink.
- Bahama Mama — Rum, coconut and fruit, from the other ocean.
Where it comes from
1957 · Honolulu, Hawaii · Harry Yee · Hilton Hawaiian Village
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
Harry Yee, head bartender at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki for thirty years, created the Blue Hawaii in 1957 when a Bols representative asked him to find a use for blue curaçao. His drink was rum, vodka, blue curaçao, pineapple and sweet-and-sour, shaken — and Yee is also the man who first put a paper umbrella and a pineapple wedge on a cocktail. The Blue Hawaiian, with cream of coconut and no vodka, blended, is a later variant that borrowed the name and the colour; it is effectively a blue Piña Colada. The two drinks are routinely confused, and most bars will make whichever you describe.
Sources
- Jeff Berry, Beachbum Berry Remixed, 2010 (book)
- Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Harry Yee obituary, 2019 (article)
- Hilton Hawaiian Village bar history, 1957 (archive)
Strength. About 1.25 US standard drinks at an estimated 10% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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