The Lake McKenzie
A cocktail the exact colour of the lake it’s named after — pale turquoise, white sand around the rim.
Lake McKenzie isn’t a deep blue. It’s pale, almost milky turquoise sitting over sand so white it looks bleached — and that’s a much harder colour to put in a glass than it sounds.
Most blue cocktails go electric. This one doesn’t, because the coconut cream softens the curaçao into exactly the right shade instead of letting it shout.
Want it in the van? Grab the one-page card, print it and stick it inside a cupboard door.
Download the cardWhat’s in it
- White rum45 ml
- Blue curaçao20 ml
- Coconut cream30 ml
- Fresh lime juice20 ml
Plus desiccated coconut and flaky salt for the rim, and ice.
How to make it
- Rim Rita firstMix desiccated coconut with a pinch of flaky salt on a saucer. Run a lime wedge around Rita’s rim and roll it through.
- Everything into Maggie with iceRum, curaçao, coconut cream, lime. Lid on tight.
- Shake for 15 secondsHarder than you think. The coconut cream needs the work to go silky rather than streaky.
- Pour into RitaStrain it in and let it settle for a second. The colour comes up as it sits.
Desiccated coconut and flaky salt reads as silica sand around turquoise water. It takes thirty seconds and it’s the difference between a blue drink and this drink. Don’t skip it.
Whatever you do, don’t add pineapple juice. Nearly every blue cocktail recipe online includes it, and pineapple juice is yellow. Blue plus yellow gives you murky green — a swamp, not a lake.
The coconut cream is doing the colour work here. The lime is small enough not to shift it.
Taking it away with you
| Batch at home | 6 drinks | 4 drinks |
|---|---|---|
| White rum | 270 ml | 180 ml |
| Blue curaçao | 120 ml | 80 ml |
| Lime cubes, frozen separately | 8 | 6 |
Carry the coconut cream separately. It splits if you pre-mix it and sit it in an esky for two days — add 30ml per drink at the shake instead. Freeze your lime juice in an ice cube tray the night before; one cube is roughly 15ml, so a cube and a half per drink.
Two ways to change it
Lighter
Swap the coconut cream for 45ml of coconut water. You lose the opaque lagoon look and get something clearer and paler, but it’s a much easier drink in real heat and it travels better.
Nothing in it
Coconut water, lime and soda with a drop of blue spirulina gets you the same colour with no alcohol. Worth having on hand for whoever’s driving the van tomorrow.
The Lake McKenzie set
Rita and Maggie in the pale blue of the lake — Rita to drink from, Maggie to shake in and to hold your coffee the next morning. Once this colourway is gone it’s gone.
