Match your cocktail to the pool (the miniature
beach balls are plastic, made for doll houses).
Photo courtesy Pinnacle Vodka.

Pinnacle made it with their Original Vodka; you can make it your own with a flavored vodka. If you prefer, you can substitute gin or tequila.
 
RECIPE: POOL PARTY PUNCH

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. MIX ingredients and serve over ice. It’s that simple! Here’s a video with the full punch bowl recipe.

MOCKTAIL VERSION

Make a mocktail by exchanging the vodka for 7 UP, Sprite or white cranberry juice. Use blue food coloring instead of Blue Curaçao.

And for garnish, perhaps a red Swedish Fish?

Here’s the mocktail recipe.

Curaçao is an orange liqueur made from the dried peels of the laraha (LA-ra-ha) citrus fruit, grown on the island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles (southeast of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean).

The laraha is a de-evolved descendant of the Valencia orange, which was brought over from Spain in 1527. It did not thrive in the Southern Caribbean climate. The oranges that the trees produced were small, fibrous, bitter and inedible. The trees were abandoned, and the citrus fruit they produced evolved from a bright orange color into the green laraha.

When life gives you bitter fruit, distill it! It turned out that while the flesh of the laraha was inedible, the dried peel remained as aromatic and pleasing as its cultivated forebear. Experimentation led to the distillation of Curaçao liqueur from the peel.

The distilled liqueur is clear. Some brands are colored blue or bright orange to create color in cocktails. The color adds no flavor.

Blue Curaçao. The clear orange liqueur is colored blue. It is also made in an orange-colored version.

Here’s how the different types of orange liqueur differ; including Curaçao and triple sec, which are generic terms, plus brands like Cointreau, Grand Marnier and Gran Gala.