From green to blue

• Tall glass
• Add 1 measure blue curaçao
• Top up with orange juice to desired chromatic effect and/or taste
• Admire strange iridescent green colour, much the same as a Warragamba algal bloom
• Serve with pasta, topped with frozen creamed spinach fried up with garlic.

I'm assured by most of the humans in the house (all bar my own, but then again he's untrustworthy) that this is the standard way of drinking blue curaçao and that to drink it plain or mixed half and half with clear sambuca (thus getting a colour resembling Bombay Sapphire, but a very different taste) is a cruel and unusual act.

Poppycock, I say: we are already short enough on blue foodstuffs and beverages without turning them green with orange juice. That said, I did like the shimmering effect that the photo just can't do justice to, but wanted it in blue.

Ergo:

• 1 measure blue curaçao
• 1 measure pastis

Surprise at first: it doesn't stay blue but turns a rich emerald green.
Mindful of earlier posts about the explosive nature of undiluted pastis, I added some water, and hey presto, a wonderfully cloudy light blue colour, not so much iridescent as metallic.

5 parts water to the above mixture gives a colour very close to the much-loved VW Karmann-Ghia of my youth. Sadly can't find a photo of the actual car (this photo isn't far off; the actual paint colour was from a Volvo 1800), but I'm very pleased to note that it continues to send us postcards via its new owner.

To serve with?
Methinks roquefort risotto, or if it's cold some sort of blue cheese fondue, in which case one could add curaçao the pot in place of some of the white wine.

Will keep you posted once I manage to invite some victims for dinner.