Harry Yee's Original Blue Hawaii
The Blue Hawaii uses a sweet and sour mix instead of the cream of coconut favoured by the Blue 'Hawaiian’. It’s also more of a turquoise color and is never blended, rather it's built in the glass, making it a much easier drink to prepare.
Servings 1
Ingredients
- 3/4 oz Vodka
- 3/4 oz Light Puerto Rican Rum
- 1/2 oz Blue Bols Curacao
- 3 oz Pineapple Juice
- 1 oz Sweet and Sour mix
- 1 Fresh Pineapple Wedge
- 2 Maraschino Cherries - with stems if possible
- 1 Flower - either an orchid or an edible alternative
Method
- Fill a Hurricane glass with ice, then add the pineapple juice and sweet and sour mix.
- Pour in the liquor and stir to bring all the ingredients together.
- To make your garnish cut fresh pineapple into a wedge (leave the outer skin on for a nice contrast), place two cherries onto a cocktail stick and push into the pineapple, make a slit in the bottom of the wedge and place onto the side of the glass.
- Finish by placing your flower on top of the drink. Harry's signature flourish, he garnished every drink with an orchid, but we also love using edible alternatives like pansies.
Notes
If you've a preference for vodka over rum or vice versa, feel free to switch out the other spirit for your favourite.
In terms of Sweet and Sour, there are various brands on the market but if you don’t have one to hand it’s really easy to make your own with only 3 household ingredients.
The Blue Hawaii was created in 1957 by Harry Yee, the head bartender at the Hawaiian village hotel on Waikiki beach in Honolulu (which is now the hugely popular Hilton Hawaiian Village). A sales representative from Bols visited the hotel and asked bartender Yee to create a cocktail containing their new Blue Curacao drink, to help promote and boost sales of it.
Inspired by the beautiful color of the Pacific Ocean that he looked upon each day, Yee came up with the tropical wonder that is still being served over sixty years later (although recipes have been tweaked and changed over the years).
It’s said that Yee would hold up each drink he made to make sure the color looked just like the ocean behind. This is why the drink is more of a sea green turquoise color rather than the blue that you might have expected.
Yee intended the Blue Hawaii to be a built in the glass, not shaken and certainly not blended. It was designed this way for two reasons - speed and taste:
Homemade Sweet and Sour Mix
Ingredients
- 1 part each of freshly squeezed lime juice, freshly squeezed lemon juice and simple syrup.
- So for example, if you have 6 guests and they all want one Blue Hawaii each (which calls for 1 oz of sweet and sour mix per serving), you'll need 6 ounces in total - which means you should use 2oz of each ingredient.
Method
- A couple of hours before your guests arrive, combine all ingredients in a bottle with a lid and shake. You can make it earlier than this but the fresher the citrus the zingier the taste.
- Store in the fridge and give the bottle a little shake before using.
Origin
Inspired by the beautiful color of the Pacific Ocean that he looked upon each day, Yee came up with the tropical wonder that is still being served over sixty years later (although recipes have been tweaked and changed over the years).
It’s said that Yee would hold up each drink he made to make sure the color looked just like the ocean behind. This is why the drink is more of a sea green turquoise color rather than the blue that you might have expected.
Yee intended the Blue Hawaii to be a built in the glass, not shaken and certainly not blended. It was designed this way for two reasons - speed and taste:
- In a high volume environment, the time it takes to make a cocktail has a big impact on both sales and customer satisfaction.
- And in terms of taste, the drink in its stirred form is the perfect balance of mixers to alcohol, with a flavour that evolves slowly as the ice melts. But if shaken, the taste of the alcohol comes to the fore, overwhelming the pineapple and creating far more bite. (Now hey, that doesn’t sound that bad a deal does it? 😉 )