Dreaming of tropical waters? Take a dip in this deep blue punch.

At the pottery shop where my mom worked for years, there was a running joke about how to make pots that would sell: “Make it good, or make it blue.”

The world over, humans love blue. It shows up again and again as the world’s favorite color. But in the cocktail space, there have been mixed feelings. Craft cocktails generally aim to elevate authentic flavors and colors, and the blue that shows up in food and drink is often, er … less naturally sourced. In the early days of the cocktail revival, the aftertaste of disco-era drinks, Jello shots, and Appletinis – garish tipples sploshing onto leisure suits and hot pink spandex – was still lingering on tongues. Many of those drinks had never been in the same room with a fresh fruit, much less enjoyed the intimate embrace of one.

When craft cocktails started to come back in the early 2000s, their advocates were working to reset the standards and were fastidious in their gatekeeping: Quality liquors and fresh ingredients were a must. Thou shalt strive for complexity and balance and amplify all things old-timey. Begone, froufrou Blue Hawaiian; hit the bricks, cloying White Russian! Hail the serious drinks – the rye Manhattan; the complex, bitter Negroni; the gin martini, with a side order to refrigerate your vermouth.

A hint of blue crept in via the Aviation cocktail in 2007. Thanks to the arrival on American shores of importer Haus Alpenz’s Rothman & Winter bottling of crème de violette, cocktailers were again able to make the classic cocktail with the floral liqueur called for in its earliest known recipe (Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 “Recipes for Mixed Drinks”). But the scant amount of the naturally violet cordial gives the Aviation just a faint tint of lavender-blue.

The real blue blast came via New Zealand bartender Jacob Briars, who around the same time threw blue curaçao – an orange-flavored liqueur dyed blue, largely scorned by serious cocktailers of the time – into the classic Corpse Reviver No. 2 cocktail, replacing the colorless curaçao. His cheeky Corpse Reviver No. Blue (gin, Lillet Blanc, lemon and blue curaçao, with an absinthe rinse) demonstrated that a drink could both be azure eye-candy and meet the standards for freshness and complexity. The rise of visual social media held the door for other sophisticated blue booze, like Dante’s Negroni Azzuro and Porchlight’s Gun Metal Blue, an awfully Tarantinoesque name for a drink in the shade of Smurf.

The blue door is open again. Have you walked through? Or does the notion of drinking a chilled coupe of FD&C Blue No. 1 undermine the romance for you?

Look, as long as you’re not drinking it by the pint, the FDA has OK’d these colorings. We’re all loaded with microplastics at this point, and given that you’re reading a cocktail column, I’m speculating that while health may be on your list of priorities, it’s like, maybe, sixth on that list? Cocktailers generally are not my-body-is-a-temple types. Hopefully you’re not treating your body like a port-a-potty either, but between those two poles, I continue to believe there is a way to balance physical, mental and social health, while feeding that part of the brain nourished by sitting on a beach with a blue-hued umbrella drink. The Buffett Oblongata?

As this summer has heated up to preposterous temperatures, I’ve been daydreaming about tropical turquoise waters. Even in reality, water that blue somehow doesn’t seem real. Every time I go down to the Isla Mujeres or Quintana Roo, I’m shocked all over again that it is. If I can’t walk out into the Caribbean, at least I can create a summer-sweet punch the color of cool tropical seas.

I expected to use blue curaçao but landed somewhere else. I locked up my inner cocktail snob while working on this drink. It’s an ocean-blue so “girly” that if you put your ear to the rim of the bowl, you can hear the Little Mermaid singing Taylor Swift songs.

The liqueur Hpnotiq was launched 20-plus years ago. It spread largely via smart marketing that got it into clubs and music venues in New York and L.A., where it gained enough popularity that it started making appearances in music videos and getting call-outs in hip-hop tracks.

Twenty-some years! That’s how long I’ve been ignoring it at the liquor store, bypassing its glowing blue on my way to some angry amaro, snootily judging the brand by its name – I still want to buy it a vowel – and its marketing, which is clearly aimed at cool young people at the club. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a cool young person. If you’d dropped me in the hottest dance club in New York City when I was 22, I would have managed to find, and possibly reorganize, its bookshelf.

Also, I’ve often encountered Hpnotiq in recipes that include flavored vodka or Red Bull, and when I see a Red Bull cocktail, my brain summons Danny Glover in “Lethal Weapon”: “I’m too old for this (four-letter word meaning hangover).”

But having played around with Hpnotiq in drinks now, I can say, even though the marketing tells me I’m not the target audience, even though I feel a little like a cougar with a crush on the cabana boy: Hpnotiq is … delicious? It’s brightly tart, sweet, ambiguously tropical-fruit-juicy (I taste mostly passion fruit). Sure, it’s not the most complex liqueur I’ve ever tasted, but that’s what mixology is for. And that color! Luminous, milky turquoise, so clean I didn’t want to tamp it down with citrus juice. Instead, I saved the fruit for garnish and went in a tiki-adjacent direction, using orgeat for nutty roundness, a bitter liqueur and powdered citric acid – a hack from Dave Arnold’s “Liquid Intelligence” – to balance the sweetness without muting its hue.

I was curious why Hpnotiq hasn’t been bigger in the craft cocktail space. The brand came on the market at an odd moment in 2001, says Lynn House, National Spirits Specialist and Portfolio Mixologist for Heaven Hill, which has owned it since 2003. The early craft cocktail movement was so focused on rediscovery of old ingredients, she says, that newer things weren’t necessarily embraced. “It was like, if it wasn’t in the 1800s, we don’t want to deal with it.”

But the brand has sold steadily, especially in warm-weather markets, and Hpnotiq “flew off the shelves during COVID,” says House. “I think people really just wanted to have fun again, after two years of not fun.”

Amen to fun. And if you’re craving something that’s more gulf-green, you can create the cocktail Hpnotiq was most known for in its early years: an equal parts Hpnotiq and cognac concoction, known as an Incredible Hulk. (It seems a missed opportunity not to muddle mint into it, which would make it a Hulk Smash.) In the mid-2000s, a whole lot of people were drinking Incredible Hulks as they got low on the dance floor. If you try that out, I’ll salute you, from a sensible middle-aged standing position, over by the bookshelf.

Island Breeze Blue Punch

If you can’t lie on a beach gazing out at the Caribbean this summer, gazing over a bowl of this glowing blue punch provides something vacation-adjacent. The Caribbean blue hue comes from Hpnotiq, a sweet-tart passion fruit liqueur. To make sure the color doesn’t get muddied, more tartness is added in the form of powdered citric acid rather than cloudy citrus juice. Almond and a touch of slightly bitter liqueur add further complexity. Rarely does gin get so tropical.

INGREDIENTS

Block ice (optional but recommended; see Make ahead), plus cracked ice for serving

2 cups coconut water (unsweetened)

2 cups Hpnotiq liqueur

1 cup London dry-style gin

½ cup homemade or store-bought orgeat (see related recipe)

½ cup Luxardo Bitter Bianco

2 teaspoons powdered citric acid

Mint sprigs, for garnish

Lemon and lime wheels, for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Make the optional block ice: The night before you plan to serve the cocktail, fill a bowl half the size or less of your punch bowl and place in the freezer. (You can use a cereal bowl, Bundt cake pan or other container smaller than your bowl. For an extra “floating tropical island” effect, fill the container with sprigs of mint before adding the water and freezing. You can also just use large or even regular ice cubes in a pinch.)

Make the punch: When ready to serve, add the block of punch ice to a large bowl. In a separate large bowl or pitcher, combine the coconut water, Hpnotiq, gin, orgeat, Luxardo Bitter Bianco and citric acid, and stir until the citric acid has fully dissolved. Pour the punch over the block of ice in the bowl and stir again. Garnish with mint sprigs and citrus wheels, if using. Serve in champagne flutes, punch cups or rocks glasses filled with cracked ice, each garnished with a mint sprig.

Total time: 10 minutes, plus 24 hours for the optional ice block

Yield: 12 servings (makes about 6 cups)

Substitutions: Instead of Luxardo Bitter Bianco, you can substitute Dimmi, a liqueur from Milan.

Make ahead: If you want a block of punch-style ice, you’ll need to freeze it at least 24 hours in advance before serving.

Storage: Refrigerate without garnishes for up to 2 weeks.

Where to buy: Citric acid can be found at well-stocked supermarkets, usually near the canning supplies, and online. Orgeat, an almond syrup used in many tiki-style drinks, can be found at well-stocked liquor stores and online.

From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan.