The Blue Hawaii is one of the most visually distinctive cocktails in the American canon: a neon turquoise-blue drink in a hurricane glass with crushed ice, a pineapple wedge, and a paper umbrella. The drink was created by Harry Yee at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki in 1957. Yee was the head bartender at the resort; he developed the cocktail at the request of a Bols Curaçao sales representative who wanted to showcase the company's blue curaçao in a Hawaiian-themed drink. The cocktail's name comes from the Bing Crosby song "Blue Hawaii" (1937), which Elvis Presley would later cover for the 1961 film of the same name.
Harry Yee invented a cocktail that looks like a swimming pool and named it after a Bing Crosby song. The cocktail outlived the song.
Harry Yee at the Hilton
Harry Yee was born in Hawaii in 1918 and worked as a bartender in Waikiki from the late 1930s onward. He became head bartender at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (a sprawling resort hotel on Waikiki Beach) in the 1950s. The Blue Hawaii is his most famous creation; he also invented the Tropical Itch and several other Hilton-era Waikiki cocktails. Yee's role and the date of around 1957 are well-documented in trade press and in his own published interviews.
Bols Curaçao — the Dutch blue-tinted curaçao liqueur — was looking to expand its U.S. cocktail presence in the 1950s. The Hilton Hawaiian Village's tiki-tinged Hawaiian bar program was a logical venue, and Yee built a cocktail around the brand. The neon-blue color of the cocktail is the entire visual point; it's also the cocktail's signature, and any version made without blue curaçao isn't the same drink.
The Spec
Three-quarter ounce of light rum, three-quarter ounce of vodka, half ounce of blue curaçao, three ounces of pineapple juice, an ounce of sweet & sour mix (or three-quarter ounce of lemon juice plus half ounce of simple syrup). Shake with ice; strain into a hurricane glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish heavily — pineapple wedge, brandied cherry, paper umbrella, sometimes a flower.
Blue Hawaii vs Blue Hawaiian
The Blue Hawaiian is the cream variant — same rum, blue curaçao, and pineapple, but with coconut cream (and usually no vodka, no sweet & sour) replacing the lighter mixers. It's basically a blue piña colada. The two cocktails are sometimes conflated but are meaningfully different: the Blue Hawaii is a long, light, citrus-forward tropical; the Blue Hawaiian is a creamy, dessert-leaning piña colada variant. Yee is credited with both; the Blue Hawaiian likely came slightly later.
Blue Curaçao Is Mandatory
The cocktail's color is its entire point. Bols Blue Curaçao is the canonical product (it has been in Yee's recipe since 1957); Senior Curaçao of Curaçao or Marie Brizard work. Don't substitute regular orange curaçao — the cocktail loses its identity, and what's left is a perfectly fine tropical sour that isn't a Blue Hawaii.
Sweet & Sour Mix — Or Real
Bottled sweet & sour mix (the green-yellow product on the shelf at every grocery store) is the chain-bar version. A real version is fresh lemon juice plus simple syrup at roughly 1.5:1 — three-quarter ounce of lemon and half ounce of simple. The real version produces a meaningfully better cocktail; the bottled version is what every tiki bar served through the 1980s and is what the cocktail's name will evoke.
Bottom Line
The Blue Hawaii is the rare brand-marketing cocktail that became a genuine bar order through the strength of its visual identity alone. The drink is fine — fresh pineapple makes it good — and the blue color is unmistakable. It is also unmistakably a 1950s tiki-era cocktail, and ordering one in a serious modern cocktail bar will get you looks. Order it at a tropical bar with a beach view; that is the venue the cocktail was made for.