The Lucas Bowls company makes a full rainbow of products, from tangerine-colored passionfruit liqueurs to glowing green peppermint liqueurs. But what they’re often best known for is Bols Blue Curacao.
It’s orange in flavor but blue in hue. Bartenders love it for the glowing blue color but also the citrus flavors it adds to drinks, like the aptly-named Blue Lady, Blue Lagoon, and Blue Hawaii.
Lucas Bols first started distilling liqueurs in 1575 – mixing and blending ingredients into drinkable tinctures. By 1679, they had opened a small distillery in the heart of Amsterdam near Dam Square. Genever started flowing.
In 1912, the company launched the world’s first blue Curacao liqueur, born from oranges grown on the island of Curacao. By 1937, the liqueur was popping up in recipes at the world’s best bar, most notably William J. Tarling’s Cafe Royal Cocktail Book – his Blue Lady cocktail called for a full ounce and a half of the azure liqueur.
In the 40s and 50s, blue curacao became a Tiki darling, appearing in Coladas and Blue Hawaiis. Now, it’s everywhere. Modern classics include the mezcal-based Gun Metal Blue, created by Nicholas Bennett at Porch Light. Corpse Reviver No. Blue, an azure take on the Corpse Reviver, was invented by Jacob Briars in 2007.
To celebrate the distiller’s 450th year of spirits production, Bols wanted to reimagine and relaunch one of its iconic products. So they went back to the drawing board, to find a way to reinvent blue curacao.
But how do you rethink such an iconic liqueur? Do you update the recipe? Change the bottle? Will bartenders revolt? What will drinkers think?
Bols decided to roll out a second bottle: a souped-up, super-premium version of their classic Blue Curacao.
They started by looking back on Bols history. They found hundreds of different types of blue curacao, documented in notebooks preserved by the family. 1912’s edition was Creme de Ciel, cream of the sky. By the 1930s, Bols was turning out all sorts of alternative Curacaos. But by 2025, only one had survived.
To celebrate 450 years, Bols pulled out the best recipes from the archives. Other recipes, scrawled notebooks still owned by the Bols team. They trialed and tested them, riffing on the recipes to find out what consumers would be excited about.
To decide on the final blend, they packaged the bottle and sent it to bartenders around the world, asking them to tinker and play with the spirit to see how it shone in cocktails. One version from the cutting room floor had cloves—big, biting and spicy.
They landed on Bols Blue 1575, based on Lahara orange, tweaked with botanicals like cardamom for a hint of spice, grains of paradise for notes of black pepper, and vanilla for a soft sweetness. Rum is added, then the botanicals are macerated in the mixture like a tea. It’s high alcohol (29.5% ABV) and high flavor, meant to shine brighter in higher-end cocktails.
“Try it with Coca-Cola, it turns it beautifully blue,” says Ivar de Lange, the brand’s master bartender. “And Blue Curacao with Guinness is honestly good!”
The bottle itself is designed with mixology in mind. It’s 30% lighter than most bottles on the market. “That helps lower the risk of repetitive wrist injuries for bartenders,” says de Lange.
It’s slender enough to fit into a shaker, so flair bartenders can flip and toss to their heart’s desire.
This innovation is a part of an influx of change for the Bols group. Last October, Frank Cocx was named CEO, following his predecessor’s 20-year run.
As part of Cocx’s new role, he’s focused on the super-premium tier – higher-priced products, greater back-bar presence, and more premium formats. Cocx dreams of making Bols Blue 1575 the ‘hero brand’ of blue liqueurs.
“It’s at a totally different price point to the old version,” says Cocx, in a press release. “It’s a unique bottle that comes only with this drink. We’re not going to make a new range with the same bottle for other products.”