Ravenclaw House Cocktail

The Ravenclaw was the most limiting Harry Potter themed cocktail I've made. I don't think I would have been successful in making any part of a cocktail silver, but blue was still possible. I could have been lazy and used food coloring, but that wouldn't have been fun. Though my first ideas of this cocktail started with a drink that contains food coloring and that's the Blue Hawaii. I knew about butterfly pea flowers and you can easily brew a neutral tasting tea that is blue, but the crazy thing is that it can also change colors too. With acidic liquids such as pineapple and citrus in the Blue Hawaii, it seemed like a good starting point to make a color changing cocktail with this refreshing drink. 

The butterfly pea flowers are rich in anthocyanin, a kind of pigmentation commonly found in many plants, and changes color along with pH. It appears blue in a neutral solution and turns more red as it gets acidic and can turn yellow in a very basic solution. It's also the same pigmentation responsible for why some morning glories change color throughout their bloom. 

Just for curiosity, very early versions of this drink included blue curacao like the actual Blue Hawaii. However, blue curacao contains a different kind of pigmentation and will not change color so it makes the color changing effect far less noticeable. (It's common to have cheap syrupy-tasting blue curacao, but if you can find one made by Senior & Co., this one tastes quite good!) I've also tried making ice cubes with the tea and let that melt. This also does not work well because in the time it takes for the ice cubes to melt, the color change is very slow. Also, having these blue ice cubes makes it so the drink appears very dark blue and will shroud the color changing effect. 

What I ended up making was a clear-ish Blue Hawaii by swapping blue curacao with Cointreau. Then I worked on finding a nice level of dilution so the drink wouldn't need to be stirred much and it would taste good for being low ABV. The amount of water I worked with as dilution was swapped with tea so the cocktail would be built very similarly to a Blue Hawaii. What's also nice about this recipe is that many parts of this can be mixed in advanced and measured. 

I was pretty happy with this, but knowing how the tea works, I'd like to have the time to work on some new ideas with this flower.

RECIPE: Makes 4 cocktails
12 oz fresh pineapple juice
4 oz sweet and sour mix
2 oz Cointreau
3 oz white rum
5 oz butterfly pea flower tea, chilled

If you are making fresh pineapple juice, you can juice this a day in advance and it works slightly better if you let the juice rest in the fridge overnight in a tall container. A lot of the more yellow color from the juice will settle to the bottom and you can just use the clearer juice on top. This helps make the color change a little better.

For the sweet and sour mix, I use a ratio of 2:1:1 of simple syrup, lemon juice, and lime juice. Just mix and it's ready to go.

In a container, mix the pineapple juice, sweet and sour mix, Cointreau, and white rum. Just before serving, give the container a quick mix and measure 5.25 oz in a small carafe for each cocktail. 

In a tall glass, fill with ice and pour 1.25 oz butterfly pea flower in each glass. Then with the measured carafe, pour the cocktail in the glass and you'll see the color change very quickly. Give it a quick stir or two and enjoy!