Tonight I was thumbing through the Dale when I discovered the Blue Monday cocktail, which was quite a stroke of luck since I was listening to the Blue Monday radio program at the time. Blue Monday the show, as it happens, has been on the air since 1981 with the same host. I know this because they were doing a lot of talking since it is fund drive time again at my local NPR affiliate.

Blue Monday the show may be old, but the cocktail is even older. According to Dale, the cocktail appears in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book (1934). The drink then consisted of vodka, Cointreau, and blue vegetable extract. In Dale's formulation, it is made with blue curacao in place of the vegetable extract, which is fine by me since I am fresh out of blue vegetable extract. Can you imagine a time when blue vegetable extract had a home behind the bar and blue curacao didn't? Such times...

Blue Monday is one of those weird blue drinks that are striking in color but so unnatural as to make them totally unappetizing. I used a flamed lemon peel where DDG called for an orange.

Dale says that the most interesting thing about this cocktail is that it is one of the earliest Vodka drinks to appear in a cocktail book. I agree--borrrring.