Orange Archives - First Pour Cocktails

DeKuyper Triple Sec

Posted on September 29, 2023September 27, 2023 by Nick

Cointreau is expensive, but do you have to use it? Alternatives abound for orange flavored liquor, many of which are considerable cheaper. Among them is DeKuyper Triple Sec, which comes in at $10 a liter. So is it good enough to use in your drinks?

DeKuyper Triple Sec

Proof: 48 (24% A.B.V.)

Sight: Clear

Smell: The notes of orange peels float up with a little bit of fresh orange juice. Hint of sweetness, generally just orange.

Sip: Sweet, rich, lightly orange flavored. Again, more zest than fruit. It’s sweet, but with a hint of bitterness. It’s almost a little bit like pith.

Savor: The ending is sweet with just a bit of orange.

DeKuyper Triple Sec is what you’d hope for in a generic orange flavor. It delivers with a nice orange taste and plenty of sweetness. While it isn’t so sweet that its it’s undoing, it is a lot to just sip. Thankfully, we’re putting this in cocktails.

In Cocktails

In a Margarita DeKuyper is fine as the orange flavor tends to meld with the lime. That said, it is slightly sweeter, but it’s not off putting. It also doesn’t add a lot of layers. It demonstrates this more in a Sidecar, where the singular note leaves the cognac and lemon doing more of the lifting. The sweetness being higher also is noticeable, but may be more of personal preference. Overall, it isn’t a terrible foil in cocktails.

DeKuyper Triple Sec vs. Cointreau

Compared with Cointreau it DeKuyper is significantly sweeter. The flavors of orange in Cointreau are more nuanced and layered. Where as DeKuyper feels like a normal Cara Cara orange, Cointreau is layering in elements of tangerines and different varieties of orange. The higher proof makes the sugar content feel more balanced. In cocktails, this helps to keep ratios more in line with recipes that specifically call for Cointreau, allowing you to add more orange without adding as much sugar.

In Review – DeKuyper Triple Sec

DeKuyper Triple Sec isn’t bad for the price (around $10 a liter). It deliver what it needs to, orange flavor. What it doesn’t offer is complexity, and instead delivers additional sweetness. All of this taken together with the price suggests you could add this to your bar, and be relatively happy. So why don’t we? Well we suggest adding premium liquors and try to balance the sweetness in the cocktail. This doesn’t give a premium addition and requires extra effort to account for the sweetness in drinks that call for higher proportions.

Cointreau

Posted on July 23, 2021July 19, 2021 by Nick

Perhaps few bottles of liqueur are as synonymous with the type of spirit they represent as Cointreau is. The square tawny bottle is found on almost every bar, and is the top shelf orange liqueur mixer for most establishments. With good reason, Cointreau is a key ingredient in drinks including the Cosmopolitan, the Sidecar, and the Margarita. So what makes it so special, and why is it worth the upcharge over Triple Sec?

Cointreau

Sight: Clear.

Smell: There’s a natural and fresh almost clementine-orange smell that leads off. A mix of zest and fruit is in the nose, with a just a hint of pithy bitterness.

Sip: A beautiful, complex orange leads off with notes ranging from candied orange peels to fresh tangerine segments. The orange is well complimented by a subtle, balanced sweetness. There’s a hint of heat, but nothing distracting.

Savor: The ending is a delicate mix of tropical oranges with just a hint of bitter pith.

Cointreau is simple, clean, and straightforward in it’s delivery of orange liqueur flavors. The sweetness is balanced, the alcohol is moderated, and the flavors are direct and enjoyable. It’s nice enough that it even works on its own, and can be served as a cordial. [If you can find dark chocolate shot glasses, we highly recommend trying Cointreau or Gran Marnier in them].

In Cocktails

The beauty of Cointreau is the balance that it achieves in a cocktail. It manages to simultaneously be present and providing orange flavor, while not throwing unnecessary additional flavors. A result that’s easy to see in a margarita. Some citrus beyond lime is clearly present, but not in a distracting way. The sweetness also doesn’t unbalance the drink or obscure the tequila. This is true in both a Cosmo and a Sidecar. Further, unlike some other curacaos and triple secs, there’s no additional chemical or artificial taste present.

In Review – Cointreau

Cointreau is an elegant orange liqueur that does its job admirably. While the price is higher than some competitors, the flavors are cleaner and more direct. For this reason, Cointreau is the orange liqueur we recommend for your bar. Due to the number of drinks it compliments, we recommend it for when you’re starting your bar as well.

Giffard Curacao Bleu

Posted on May 7, 2021May 4, 2021 by Nick

Blue curacao is not necessarily a required ingredient in your home bar. At its core, it’s orange liqueur with blue coloring added. That coloring is the core of its charm, giving drinks an electrically colorful charm. Blue Curacao’s troubles stem from low quality producers that make poor quality curacaos, with bitter, chemical flavors. Thankfully, Giffard isn’t a low quality producer. So does Giffard Curacao Bleu do it better?

Giffard Curacao Bleu

Sight: It is undeniably blue. Somewhere between cobalt and azure with a hint of teal.

Smell: A bright smell of freshly zested oranges ranging from clementines to tangerines floats up. There’s a compliment of some vanilla notes and a hint of powder sugar. A slight tang of alcohol exists as well.

Sip: Sweet and thick to start, it brings in a slightly sour, candied orange flavor. The cloying sweetness has a hint of vanilla and other tropical orange zest notes to it.

Savor: The ending is cloyingly sweet, but leaves a light to moderate lingering tropical orange flavor palate.

Why anyone would want to drink Giffard Curacao Bleu straight is not for me to ponder. Suffice it to say that unless you a fan of saccharinely sweet liqueurs that are primarily orange flavored, then you will very little here to enjoy on it’s own.

In Cocktails

Lest we be too hard on Giffard Curacao Bleu, as it works wonderfully in cocktails. The two things you want blue curacao to do well are:

Be Blue
Impart a lightly-tropical but ultimately orangey flavor into a cocktail.

The first two things it passes with flying colors. It is, in fact, blue. It also happens to be orange flavored. More importantly, it passes another unspoken rule, it doesn’t impart any strange cheap flavoring or chemical flavors. This last one is the kiss of death of most of the Windex colored liqueurs you see gracing the bottom shelf.

There is a third, semi-unspoken objective that blue curacao also has (which Giffard passes), which is to add sweetness. The third is obviously optional, but something that always needs to be considered when making drinks with any orange liqueur. Overall, even though Giffard’s blue curacao is sweet, it’s not overwhelmingly sweet, and thanks to that, it replaces well with 1:1 simple. As a result of its good behavior and modifier characteristics, we’ve used it in both our original Frankenstein and Slimer cocktails.

Giffard Curacao Bleu Overall

Giffard Curacao Bleu is somewhat more expensive than it’s competitors, ranging from the low to mid $20s. We feel that based on the smooth characteristics, natural flavors, and balanced sweetness that it’s one of the best blue curacao options out there, and highly recommend it for any bar looking to add a blue curacao to their cocktail kit.

Giffard Curacao Bleu Cocktails

Halloween Inspired Cocktails 2019 - Slimer — Slimer

Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao

Posted on March 3, 2020June 9, 2020 by Nick

One of the most flummoxing things about starting to make certain cocktails was that ingredients have a way of sounding like one another. After all, whiskey is also whisky, bourbon is whiskey, and scotch is whisky. Much like Scotch isn’t Bourbon though, not all curaçao are equivalent – well not exactly anyway. So when you think about orange liqueurs, where does Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao fit?

What is Curaçao?

To start – let’s just establish what curaçao is. Historically speaking, curacao was a liqueur made from the Laraha orange’s extract. This bitter orange wasn’t much for eating, but the peels were aromatic. Figuring out this could be made into liqueur with neutral spirits or brandy, curaçao was born. Supposedly seeking to help give some mystique, Bols is said to have added the blue coloring to the concoction.

In addition to Bols adding blue coloring, there’s some debate as to who exactly started the name Triple Sec (which in this case, you can use synonymously with curacao). Some claim it came from Cointreau, who went through multiple iterations of branding – and ultimately removed it once a flood of cheap triple sec hit the market. Others claim it was a label for the distillation process. Regardless of where it started, Triple Sec supplanted Curaçao in some name conventions, and you can now swap the names interchangeably.

But what about the ingredients? While you’ve probably experienced blue curacao at one point or another it would be a mistake to think that it was identical to other curaçaos – like Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao. The magic in this starts with the base, and develops from there through the addition of spices and the orange used. Some ingredients, like your Mr. Boston Triple Sec are low level, orange flavored neutral spirits gussied up with sugar. Others, like Grand Marnier, are brandy based and intrinsically have underlying notes of oakiness and grape brandy.

Depending on the other flavors in your drink, sometimes you can get away with this. A bold or aged tequila might play well with brandy based curacao like Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao in a Margarita. While something more subtle though, might require the use of a neutral spirit like Cointreau – which is our go to recommendation as it will work regardless.

As a note: While some will probably fight me on this, not all Blue Curaçao are bad, notably Giffard makes a lovely one.

On It’s Own: Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao

Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao is modeled after classic early 20th century French orange. It features Laraha oranges infused in grape brandy, combined with a distillate of walnut skins and prunes aged in brandy and cognac, and toasted sugar aged in barrels.

Sight: A beautiful golden color with hints of orange

Smell: Macerated orange peels float out on the nose and mix with various orange notes. Candied characteristics layer with touches of pith and notes of nuttiness and grapes build around the edges.

Sip: The body starts out round and quickly shows it sweetness. A good amount of brightness keeps things level. The orange is front and center, bringing a mix of orange flavors out. There’s a bit of the pith and a strong backbone of woodsy, nutty, sweet caramelized sugar.

Savor: The ending rounds out sweet – but slowly turns pithy. The flavor of candied oranges and slightly nutty cognac lingers.

I’d be remiss to tell you that Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao was anything other than luscious and delectable. The subtle complexity wafting up on the nose, and the well rounded palate make it a pleasure to sip. Thanks to its sizable character, it also plays great in cocktails, and is an ingredient that shows up in the world of Tiki cocktails. On of the most notable of which is the classic El Presidente highlighted in Smuggler’s Cove*, featuring a solid mix of grenadine, dry vermouth, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao, and Lightly Aged Rum.

Final Thoughts:

Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao is a wonderful orange liqueur that’s well worth the price. Check it out if you’re into Tiki or want a new orange liqueur experience with an extra French historical flare.

If Pierre Ferrand seems familiar, or you want to try something else by them, check out our past reviews of Plantation 20th Anniversary and O.F.T.D for some of their excellent rums. For even more info, check out Pierre Ferrand’s Site.

Category: Orange

DeKuyper Triple Sec

DeKuyper Triple Sec

In Cocktails

DeKuyper Triple Sec vs. Cointreau

In Review – DeKuyper Triple Sec

Cointreau

Cointreau

Giffard Curacao Bleu

Giffard Curacao Bleu

In Cocktails

Giffard Curacao Bleu Overall

Giffard Curacao Bleu Cocktails

Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao

What is Curaçao?

On It’s Own: Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao

Final Thoughts:

* – Contains an affiliate link that may result in First Pour Cocktails receiving a portion of the sale.