We believe that the Dutch trading companies made orange liqueur popular in the 17th century. They found fruits and herbs all over the world during their voyages, and used some to make essentialoils. But one was special: the Laraha Orange, which was only found on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
The Dutchgave the orange a Latin name that includes the Latin name for Curaçao: “Citrus Aurantium Currassuviensis”. They decided to make orange liqueur with the extract and the Curaçao Liqueur was born. Bols claims they used the Laraha at that time, or at least, an extract based on the Laraha. It is unknown if they also invented the name Curaçao Liqueur, but they sure helped to make it popular.Bolsno longer uses the Laraha Orange in their distillation process.
Cointreau (since 1875) claims to have invented the name Triple Sec, based on the 3 different types of oranges they use. However, Jean Baptiste Combier also claims to have invented the term Triple Sec (triple distilled). But we’ll leave that battle to them.
Is the difference between Curaçao Liqueur and Triple Sec marketing driven?
When looking at the history of Cointreau labels, they first named it Triple Sec Cointreau. Some years later, they added another term to the label: Curaçao Blanc. We believe that, at that time, the term Curaçao Liqueur was so popular, that Cointreau wanted to take advantage of that success. On later Cointreau labels, they again removed the term Curaçao. Supposedly, because Cointreau wanted to distance itself from the many cheap Curaçao liqueurs on the market.
In the years after, Triple Sec became the standard in the industry which ‘dethroned’ the term Curaçao Liqueur.
In 1896, Senior & Co. started producing Curaçao Liqueur with the Laraha orange peel. Up until the early 21st century, Senior only communicated with Curaçao Liqueur. But as the name Triple Sec became the industry standard and a product name, we now communicate with Curaçao Triple Sec. This is mainly to make it easier for consumers to understand what the product is, the same as Cointreau did in their beginning.
So, basically, the differences in names are primarily marketing driven.
- You may be also interested in readingHow to Pronounce Blue Curaçao.
