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Made with pantry ingredients and full of fresh orange flavor, Blue Curaçao Syrup is easy to make at home and a delicious addition to your home bar drinks.

A glass bottle filled with blue Curaçao syrup.

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Ingredients for Blue Curaçao Syrup
How to Make Blue Curaçao Syrup at Home
How to use Blue Curaçao Syrup
What Kind Of Oranges Should I Use?
Looking for More Simple Syrup Recipes?
Is Using Blue Food Coloring Really Necessary?
Try These Tropical Drink Recipes
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There are so many fun, colorful drinks out there - many of which are made with blue Curaçao syrup. This orange flavored syrup has a delicious citrus flavor from fresh citrus fruit.

Many types of Blue Curaçao in your local store fall into the category of orange liqueur, an alcoholic liquor that tastes a lot like triple sec. This recipe for homemade blue curacao syrup is an alcohol free syrup that can be used in a variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, like my Blue Lagoon Mocktail recipe.

It's also delicious in alcoholic recipes. Swap out alcoholic blue curacao for this version to lower the amount of alcohol in your cocktail without sacrificing any flavor.

Perfect for blue drinks at baby showers or backyard BBQs (or just a hot summer day!), this citrus syrup is delicious in a glass with soda water and ice cubes. (Add a little white rum or vodka for a boozy version.)

Ingredients for Blue Curaçao Syrup

Fresh Oranges - You’ll need both orange peel and the juice from the oranges for this recipe. Choose fresh, firm fruit and use it soon after purchasing it. (See my note below for more on oranges.)
White Sugar - Pure cane sugar or beet sugar is best for this recipe. Other sugars will add in their own flavor and can overwhelm the sweet orange flavor in this syrup.
Fresh Lemon - There are very few ingredients in this syrup, so squeeze fresh citrus here. You’ll need less than half of a lemon for this recipe. You can swap it out for lime juice if you don't have any lemons on hand.
Blue Food Coloring - I used the little blue dropper bottle in my pantry, but choose your favorite brand. Amounts in the recipe are based on liquid food coloring, so use your best judgment if you’re using gel coloring.

How to Make Blue Curaçao Syrup at Home

Peel the oranges, careful to get only the outer peel and not the bitter white pith below.

A hand using a citrus reamer to juice an orange.

Cut the oranges in half and juice them into the pan.

Combine sugar, water, orange juice, and lemon juice in a small pot.

A hand stirring a pot of water and sugar.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Add in the orange peels.

Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool for 30 minutes.

Syrup being poured through a mesh strainer into a bowl.

Strain syrup through a fine mesh strainer to remove the orange peels and any pulp from the juice. Stir in food coloring.

Blue Curaçao syrup being poured into a glass jar.

Pour into a glass, airtight container (like a mason jar or glass bottle) with a lid.

Store your blue curaçao syrup in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Note: Your syrup will likely be a darker blue color and not quite as clear as the Blue Curaçao Torani Syrup or Monin Syrup. Using fresh orange juice is what causes the color and clarity to be different than the store-bought blue syrup. If you want your syrup to look more like store-bought, reduce the juice to one orange.

How to use Blue Curaçao Syrup

Mix it into a glass of lemonade for Blue Curacao Lemonade.
In a Blue Hawaiian cocktail or this Sapphire Martini.
Mix it with pineapple juice and club soda for a delicious non-alcoholic tropical, blue drink.
In non-alcoholic cocktails like my Blue Lagoon Mocktail.

A drink made from blue Curaçao syrup and club soda.

What Kind Of Oranges Should I Use?

Technically this should be made from curaçao oranges (hence the name!), but I’ve never seen those in the stores in Michigan. I used naval oranges for this recipe. Cara Cara oranges are also delicious in this syrup.

Keep in mind, you’re getting all of the orange flavor from the fruit you select. Choose oranges you’ve bought recently, the sweeter and more in season, the better. Oranges that have been hanging out in the fridge for a while have lost a lot of the oil in their peel. They’ll be tougher to peel and not as flavorful.

Looking for More Simple Syrup Recipes?

Homemade simple syrups are easy to make and one of the best ways to level up your drinks game. This quick lemon simple syrup is ideal in iced tea and mocktails. Or try a mint simple syrup that adds a delicious twist to hot chocolate and coffee.

A bottle of lemon simple syrup. — Lemon Simple Syrup

A jar of mint simple syrup — Mint Simple Syrup

Is Using Blue Food Coloring Really Necessary?

It’s definitely the easiest way to make your syrup blue. Getting the syrup blue is necessary because that’s the entire point of the syrup. (Use my orange simple syrup recipe if you’re looking for plain orange syrup.)

I’ve seen recipes using butterfly pea flowers to color the syrup. But since the flowers turn purple when added to citrus, you then need to get some alkaline water and keep the pH of the syrup balanced in order to keep the flowers from turning the syrup purple instead of blue.

This all seems like a lot of work and hassle to me when I can just add a couple drops of blue food coloring from the pack of color already in my cabinet instead.

Try These Tropical Drink Recipes

Print the Recipe Card

Blue Curaçao Syrup Recipe (Non Alcoholic)

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Quick and easy to make at home with pantry ingredients, citrus orange Blue Curacao Syrup is a delicious and fun ingredient for tropical cocktails and mocktails.