Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio.
I'm Annie and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode for you about cursow LeCour.
Yes, yes, and what an episode it is. Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Lauren? Was there? I love this every time? Me too.
I could have been anything. Yeah, I think that I was just kind of combing around looking for I had been looking at Mescal and both of us kind of went, I don't know, that's a lot. And something else on the web page that I was looking at was talking about.
Cursow completely legitimate.
Yeah, there I go.
I can come from.
Yeah. Sometimes it's a very well thought out chain, and sometimes it's just like my you know, one of my brain cells just kind of beat booping around in my skull until something connects.
Mm hmmmm mmmm well uh, speaking of beat booping. First of all, drink responsibility as always. Second of all, I have a bottle of blue Curse Owl that I'm convinced I could be buried with.
It's huge. Just I don't use that much of it?
No, sure, No, you shouldn't really, I mean, what kind of things are you using it in?
So I bought it for Star Wars thing, sure, because a lot of the Star Wars cocktails because the blue is so splu even though I can make my own blue gin, but whatever it called specifically for blue cursew this drink I was making. I think I've used it twice since then. It's a huge bottle.
I think it was the smallest bell I could find and it was still really real large.
Yeah, yeah, I certainly one of the types of bottles of alcohol that I just sort of wind up collecting dust with are orange liquors of various kinds, and I think that I've got because when I was cleaning out my grandmother's condo, I found deep buried in the back of her China hutch a bunch of alcohol that's older
than I am by a solid twenty years. And most of it was like cream liqueurs that you didn't know that they made, which are really terrible, especially after say, sixty years, but a couple of them, like there was like a bottle of whiskey that I've got to say, was the nicest thing I think I've ever tasted, all on opened, all on open. My Dad's out of the
family doesn't really drink that much. But among these, I bring it up because there was a bottle, a blue currosol in like the orange shaped, like the flat orange shaped bottle, so impossibly blue and so very slightly more nineteen sixties ish than even the bottles available today. Wow. Yeah, I regret to say that I did open it, And I regret to say that because it tasted awful and it was so pretty in the bottle that I'm kind
of like that. It was nicer as a prop yeah, as a piece of decor in my home, because then I just dumped it, you know, but yeah, oh less alas a lac. I believe I have photographs of it. Maybe I'll update our Instagram for the first time in over two years.
Today could be the day nobody knows.
Nobody knows, not even us, mystery to us.
All that's quite a fine.
Yeah, yeah, I could see it working well as if you've got a light behind it as a decoration.
I mean, the ones they still sell are still outrageous in color, you know.
Oh yes, but still it would have felt mm hmmmm. Well, listeners, let us know if you've ever made a discovery like that. Oh, you can see our gin episode I would say, yeah, kind of similar process. Yeah, other episodes that involved distilling oranges.
Sure, I don't know what an episode that was.
Other licore kind of things.
Yes, yes, well, I guess that does bring us to our question. Curusala cores.
What are they?
Well? Curseliicors sometimes just called cursow are a category of orange licors, which means in this case that they are a distilled alcohol, sweetened and flavored traditionally with orange peel and other spices. They can be made in different colors, though the typical ones are either clear or golden, you know, like kind of orange or this like bright ocean blue at varying levels of ocean depth, I suppose, depending on
the brand. They can come in other colors too, like deep green or bright red, though that's more historical than current anyway. They tend to be bittersweet and citrusy, and can run a little bit syrupy depending. The blue ones are so blue that they will blueify any drink you make with them. Cursow is typically served in cocktails as like a non main ingredient. Yes, the blue is an
artificial color. Blue does not occur that often in nature and tends to be unstable when it does so, like fine for something that you're making in your own home, probably not good for putting.
On a shelf.
The orange taste can come from actual orange peels in the distillation process or from natural or artificial orange flavors added later. Specifically in either case, like sour bitter oranges that have these like fragrant floral kind of flavors are traditional. Like many liqueurs that the gap that you're going to find between the bottom shelf nine dollars bottle and like a nice bottle that's sometimes somewhere over like three times
that price, the difference is going to be stark. But it's a sweet, orangey liqueur with a little bit of a bitter, powdery, spicy, floral kind of flavor to it. Like at its worst, you're kind of wondering how kool aid got into your drink. But at its best, it's like it's like catching a ray of sun through a piece of stained glass that's shaped like an orange and might be any number of colors.
Oh, I love that.
I don't think I've ever had like the good uh currousel, and I would like to try it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I also appreciated how many people made the same joke of like, it looks blue, but it tastes orange.
Uh huh yeah yeah, so yeah, it could come into any.
Color though, can Yeah why not? Yeah so uh Cursso the liqueur is named for the island country Curusow, which is off the north coast of South And in the Caribbean. It's near Aruba, like northwest of Caracas. They have there the subspecies of bitter orange called the Lauraja orange, which is a small, sort of lumpy, very round orange, kind of the size of more like a lemon or a lime. Traditionally, when the fruits are mature but still green, they're harvested
and peeled. The peels are then sun dried, and then they will be steamed or steeped into a neutral liqure derived from sugar cane along with other spices, maybe some vanilla or clove, and the resulting flavored liquor is sweetened and bottled, maybe with color added. But that is how cursow from Currosow is made. If it is made elsewhere, the process may vary. Producers are understandably cagey about their
ingredients and processes. But yeah, it can be used in cocktails or can be consumed by itself in small glasses. Is like a parrotee for digestive perhaps the cup of coffee.
Whoa, what about the nutrition?
Uh A? Drink responsibly. Also, we have been avoiding doing an episode about food dyes because it's complicated. I mean, it's not that complicated, okay, So like very basically the blue used to color blue crosol is an artificial color derived in labs from petroleum products. That doesn't mean it's terribly scary, like it's probably just fine. Most of it
just passes right on through you. Like of all the things that might be giving you cancer right now, don't worry about the food dye, Like worry about the alcohol before you worry about the food dye. You know, wear sunscreen, eat a vegetable.
Yeah, yeah.
I think the issue with food dye is too that we're going to have to tackle is the history of this specific food dye. It could be in a whole episode, shorter episode, I think, but it could be a whole episode on its own.
And I think that that's true for most of them, probably because you know, they are all these proprietary products that were produced in labs and have these kind of fascinating origin stories behind them. But yeah, don't worry about it.
Drink responsibly, yes, yes, that's yes.
Well, speaking of I guess we've got kind of a number slash friendly warning.
Sure, yes, speaking of drinking responsibly, LA course like curso can seriously range in percentage of alcohol by volume. Historically they tended to be pretty high, so especially some more traditional recipes or like boutique brands might really surprise you with like a thirty percent plus ABV, but less expensive ones are usually lower. But yeah, read your labels. That also helps for cocktail making because you don't want to totally overpower different flavors.
Oh no, that would be terrible. Yeah, that would be terrible in several ways. Yeah, another fun savor thing, savor motto.
We could have read read your labels?
Uh huh yep, yeah, I recommend it.
Yes, I do too, Even though it might it might make you sad, it's better to know.
I I do think it's better. No, personally, yeah, I.
Think so too. Well, speaking of we do have quite a history for you.
We do, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from a quick break forward from our sponsors. And we're back, thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Okay. So, as always with these, the history of Cursow is hard to get a handle on, and certainly some of it has been lost to history in one way or another.
It's very complicated. But when the Spanish arrived on the tropical Caribbean island of Currossow in fourteen ninety nine, they immediately started colonizing it, including enslaving the indigenous people. They also started trying to plant crops that they wanted to grow on the island.
Yeah, lots of it didn't go super well. They did get some cattle and goats going, but I think most of the crops kind of sort of failed.
Yeah, and then the Dutch invaded Currosow in sixteen thirty four. The Dutch West India Company defeated Spain and took control of the island, and they turned it into a major hub for the trade of enslaved peoples. One of the things the Spanish had tried to cultivate or oranges, but the conditions weren't right. Records indicate that the Spanish had transported the seeds of Valencia or possibly Seville oranges, depending on the source, to the island in fifteen twenty seven.
But they just never really took hold.
Yeah. However, the Lajara oranges on the island are thought to be wild descendants of these failed Spanish oranges. The thing is, like, oranges don't grow true from seed. They're
not picky pollinators. They'll accept pollen from any citrus fruit being grown in the area, which means that when the Spanish saved the seeds from oranges that they liked in Europe and planted them and curs out the fruit from the eventually resulting tree might have been closer to a lemon or a lime or a grapefruit, or it might have been a total mess. Like to get consistent citrus crops, farmers graft pieces of successfully fruiting branches onto existing citrus
tree trunks or roots. So anyway, Yeah, So, the theory is that the citrus seeds that the Spanish plant had failed to bear like juicy, sweet fruits, but the laureja did turn out to have other desirable qualities.
Yes, the fruit themselves were too bitter to eat, but people found that the peel had this lovely smell when broken or agitated.
Yeah, those good orange oils.
Yeah, Yes, And someone decided to use the oil from the peel and distillation, something people had likely been doing in their own homes. So, as per usual, the case of who invented Curseow is really murky.
Yeah, I couldn't find a really good source, but I did read in a couple places, and it kind of makes sense that, like, faced with these decidedly unfruity fruits, the people who lived there were like just trying to come up with something to do with them, Like even the goats wouldn't eat them, and they were like, so goats, goats wouldn't need them.
Oh no, I know.
So, so the peals might have been incorporated into things like medicine, and medicine was associated with liquor so.
Yes, which brings us to the story of one of the most well known brands, Senior and Company. All Right, the Dutch ships that attacked the island Currosow were also carrying several Jewish families. Several other contingents of Jewish people arrived over the years, largely fueled by promises of religious freedom and economic opportunity. One such family was the Seniors. They had escaped Spanish persecution and eventually ended up in curzol.
After a couple of generations had passed, in eighteen ninety six, Edgar Senior partnered with him Mendez Schumasero to establish Senior and Company. They used the peals of the raha or to distill a liquor that boasted a strong orange flavor. At first, they operated out of Boutika Excelsior, a drugstore where Chumaso produced an at partief or digestive based on
his father's recipe. They called it Senior's Curse Out, which, by the way, I had a really funny misunderstanding where I thought they called it seniors Curse Out because his dad was a senior. No, because of Edgar Senior's name. Anyway, Uh, they called it. They called it Senior's curis Altnic, but
changed the name to Senior's Cursel Liquoru. Kumisarro's widow kept making small batches of the stuff after his death in nineteen hundred, but it didn't really go commercial until nineteen forty five, when like a bunch of companies and people came together and it was incorporated and the company that was form purchased the recipe from the widow and they set up shop in a plantation house nineteen forty six, which I understand you can still visit, listeners, please let
us know, yeah if you've ever been and done the tour, because yeah, they're still around and as a currosow produced in Currosou, the US has given them some allowances around the usage affords like authentic. On their labels, they call their product the genuine Currosow, the Core, so you've got them. But we also have to mention the brand Bulls. And here's a very abbreviated history as it pertains to Curasou
and this company. In fifteen seventy five, the Bolsiest family opened a distillery in Amsterdam or on the outskirts of it near water, since distilling in the city center was prohibited at the time. Historians think they also fled Spanish religious persecution and settled in Amsterdam, where they shortened their name to Bulls so it sounded more Dutch. There's some argument about when they actually started distilling, but it was round about fifteen seventy five or a.
Few decades later.
Bowls frequently worked with the Dutch East India Trading Company and was one of their shareholders, and this meant that they got access to a lot of the urban spices the company sent to Amsterdam from all around the world. Bowls in turn supplied them with their spirits, which the
company drank themselves but also distributed around the world. There isn't concrete evidence of when Bulls started making curse ow yep nope, which is also like their website was a little wonky for me to navigate, and that could be because I'm in the US. But according to them, cursow made its way to Europe soon after it was being made on the island, and they had access to these orange feels and the oil already from trade, so presumably
the early nineteen hundreds. Some sources put it way earlier, though, but not that many that I could find, But some some do.
I don't know.
Yeah, no, I don't think any true. I don't think anybody does. If anybody does, I.
Love to hear about it.
Yeah, yes, which does bring us to blue curse ow okay, okay, al so difficult to pin down. Many do give credit to the Dutch company Bowls with coming up with what they called Cream of the Sky and nineteen twelve as a gimmick to make prettier cocktails by dying curs out Blue. According to the company, they've been making it since the nineteen twenties. However, fun they can't prove either of these
things really. The others say it was instead invented by Senior Cursou, though they say they didn't start producing it until the nineteen sixties. By the nineteen twenties, so mentions of not only blue Currosow, but cursews of many colors started popping up, though Blue seems to have always been the most popular front runner. Whatever company first started producing it, it was almost certainly a marketing stunt, and at first
its usage was largely relegated to beachside vacation cocktails. And in fact, that's why some people think the blue took off is because it reminded people of the blue sky and the blue yeah shreluewater. At the same time, the US was seeing a rise in tiki culture and restaurants with establishments like Trader Vicks, and a lot of these places offered cocktails that were going for that beachy vibe,
and plenty of them used blue Currosow. The product got another booze, perhaps in the nineteen sixties, with the release of the Elvis Presley movie Blue Hawaii because the blue Hawaiian cocktail gets its bright blue coloring flom blue currosow. But then along came the overly sweet cocktail chins of the seventies and eighties, which we've talked about a lot.
Blue cursow is no.
Longer confined to these vacation cocktails and spaces, but it was added into all kinds of things. But again, soon enough it had overstayed its welcome. As the nineties came along and the craft cocktail movement got underway and blue currosow was banished back to vacation s spaces, it became somewhat derided, though there are there have been a handful of attempts to make a more natural blue cursow. But like you said, Lauren, usually the problem is you have to drink it pretty quickly.
Yeah. Yeah, you can't really bottle and sell it for use a few months from now. It's kind of a yeah yep.
These days, the blue dyeing question is largely Brilliant Blue FCF, which yes, I would love to do a whole episode. Maybe I'm maybe I'll kick myself later when the episode comes. Yeah, Brilliant blue FC.
What a name.
And to celebrate four hundred and fifty years of operation. On April fifteenth, twenty twenty five, Bowls unveiled Bowls Blue fifteen seventy five, a premium blue curse out and it was a whole thing. It had a lot of fanfare, a lot of press releases. I couldn't find it in the US. I think I could still find it in the UK for sale.
Yeah, Bowls in general, I'm oh man, I'm saying this on the fly. I feel like whenever I see it in the United States, it is one of those extreme bottom shelf kind of options. I don't think they import or export the I don't think they bring their nice stuff here. But I'm not totally I haven't really looked into it. So here we are.
Yeah, another question to follow up on later, perhaps, yes, but that's that's about the end of our history. Outline listeners. If you have been on tours of any of these places.
Oh yeah, yeah.
If you have any any recipes or recommendations.
Uh huh, any requests to in fact follow up on any of these potential wrab holes.
Yes, please let us know. But I think that's what we have to say about cursow from now it is.
We do already have some listener mail for you, though, and we are going to get into that as soon as we get back from one more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
And we're back with the listener.
May I speche Oh yeah, I got confused at the end there. I wasn't sure where you were going. But so that the wind in my head. Oh okay, okay, that's what I was doing. Could be Yeah, that's it is, waving in the wind. I think so or something. See what super producer.
And yeah, well weigh in it.
Yeah, he is very kind to us, y'all. When we really fail, when we exter fail to harmonize, that's when he steps in.
Yes, he's ready, and he's a pro he is. We're grateful for him every day. Absolutely. Oh my goodness. Yes, all right.
Uh, Joe wrote you asked for pasta salad recipes, So here's my mom's recipe. Cold sweet mayo based pasta salad is popular in the Philippines around Christmas, though it can pop up at.
Parties year round.
It probably came to the Philippines after World War two and was quickly adapted to Filipino taste. I'll be honest, it's not my favorite. If I want something cold and sweet at a party, I'll go for dessert rather than a pasta salad. However, my mom is fond of it and usually takes some home and makes her own when she's craving it. As usual, no measurements are used, so
just add ingredients to your taste. She uses cooked elbow macaroni, dice carrots, diced apples, diced cheddar cheese, and enough mayo just to coat everything. Season with salt, pepper and a dash of sugar. If you want to add meat, shred or cubes some chicken breast and add sweet pickle relish in joy.
Hmm oh that is fascinating.
I okay, As you probably know, dear listener, who I know has been with us for a while, Uh huh, A little difficult for me.
Annie is anti mayo. Yeah yeah, but I do you like hearing about I'm just so interested in kind of regional global varieties of pasta.
Salad, and I bet if you liked I can see it working for a non mao.
For someone who likes mayo, I can see it working.
Yeah yes, yeah, no, me too. Like all of those things are things that go well together in different applications. I had never thought of putting them together in a pasta salad.
Yeah.
I think it's the sweet pickle relish that's making it makes sense to me. Oh interesting as like a binding concept? Oh, like a flavor, like a flavor, not not like a physical binding concept, but a flavor binding concept. No interesting.
Oh I please listeners keep these messages coming because I love this. That is so fascinating And I do feel as someone who also has a mom who likes things that like no one else likes, that's for her, kind of make it for herself until until the pasta came in. This did remind me of our Ambrosia episode. Oh absolutely, Asia, get up to some stuff like I can define it. We struggled to in that episode.
I'm still a little bit terrified of that episode.
I think about it nice. I still don't know the answer to what ambrosia is. Really.
No, it's unanswerable.
That's okay.
It's okay to have ineffable things out there, that's all right. Yeah, Hailey wrote, I can't believe I finally have a reason to tell you about my cookies. At the end of the Klamada episode, you guys were pining for cammbert cookies. I actually make Charcoteri style cookies. I haven't done a camm beer flavor yet, but it has been bumped up to next on my list. I started baking in twenty eighteen when I wanted more fun cookies, not the same old,
boring chocolate chip. My first weird flavor was white chocolate chip lavender, and it was a hit with my family. After years of testing, tasting, and experimenting, I finally launched my own micro bakery last October. Some of my most popular normal flavors include rosemary, chocolate chip, oatmeal, apple pie, banana cream pie, and salted butterscotch. But I wanted to go even weirder. A few months ago, I started a series of weird cookie recipes to bump up my views
on social media. My first flavor was blue cheese with pistachios and dried cranberries. They were green tinted and definitely funky, but something about the sweet and salty combo really worked. People on social media were borderline insalted by my audacity, but nearly everyone that has been brave enough to try one has been obsessed. I've also done fig feta and lemon short bread cookies, seaweed sesame, chocolate chip cookie, chocolate everything,
bagel season in cookies, and more. I'm testing both siracha and pop Rocks cookies today. The most popular with my friends and family has been spicy Gocha young caramel cookies, and the worst by far has been peanut butter ketchup cookies. I've attached a couple photos of the blue cheese, feta and Gocha gen cookies, and my baking slash taste test videos can be seen on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook at
Baked by ky Colectic. If you guys are ever in Oregon, I'd love to share my weird cookies with you, and I'll be testing a camm bear cookie in your honor, and that's Baked by ky Colectic like eclectic but chi clectic kai C L E C T I C. Yeah, all of this is so cool. Congratulations on launching your micro bakery.
Yes, yes, I I mean the cookies look amazing the pictures you sent they look so cute. But I really really uh I love this. I love that you're just like, you know what, let's try this flavor in this flavor and see what happens. I can see spicy goju jung caramel cookies.
Oh no, I want that, I want that. I want all of these immediately. Actually, maybe not the peanut butter ketchup ones.
That's so funny because it's such an American.
Like like a clashing of two really popular Americans.
Yeah yeah that, I'm just like.
Whoof yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
But the rest of these they sound they sound amazing. I'm loving kind of your just mad scientists almost like yeah, I'm sure you have a lot more thought than you're explaining to us into it, but it sounds very like, let's just try these together.
No, I know, I think that all of this makes perfect sense, to be honest, Like, there wasn't a single aside from the peanut butter ketchup to be on that one.
Really, You're like, why haven't we been eating these everything else?
Yeah? I was like, oh, of course, clearly. Sorry you were going to say.
Oh, I was just gonna say, I hope the canon bear one please report back.
Oh absolutely, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah ah cool? Oh man, I just want weird cookies okay.
Forever in Oregon, and we'll let you know. Don't offer us cookies. We will show up.
It's true, we will.
Yes, Yes, we'll keep us updated.
Yeah, good luck, have fun.
Yes and uh.
Other listeners, whatever projects you're working on, we always love to hear what you're working on. Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in. If you would like to contact us, you can. You can email us at hello at savorpod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky. Sorry I still struggle with that. I'm at Saverpod and we would like to hear from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.