Sugar

Brown Sugar is a sucrose sugar with a distinctive brown colour from the presence of molasses, it is a partially refined or unrefined sugar containing sugar crystals and residual molasses giving it a distinctive taste and flavour of crystallised molasses or toffee. The taste of dark brown sugar is described as a caramel taste with a deep molasses flavour.
Brown sugar is used in cocktails where a caramel candy or toffee flavour is expected.

Caster Sugar is finely ground granulated sugar. It is not as fine a powdered confectioners' sugar and has a little grit to it. It is somewhere between confectioners' sugar and granulated sugar, and melts in mouth with a mild spicy feel to the tongue

Vanilla Sugar is the regular granulated sugar infused with vanilla flavour, by using vanilla pods and seeds to flavour the sugar. A home made alternative is to use vanilla sticks or pods in a jar of sugar and leave it sealed for 4 weeks to allow the vanilla flavour to infuse. Or to use granulated sugar and vanilla extract and blend in a mixer, although this ends up in powdered sugar.

Water

Water might seem like one ubiquitous ingredient in any alcoholic beverage, and to have no specific purpose other than dilute the alcohol, to prevent irritation and burn, it has more purpose to its presence than it seems.
Water breaks the alcohol molecules and attaches to them and releases the esters that holds the secret to the aroma into the drink and to the nose. Temperature of water is important and although almost all cocktails are served chilled, be sure to understand the role water plays in a drink. Another factor is the quality of water, if you are serious about your cocktail, be sure to use the best neutral tap water or preferably bottled spring water if possible.

Lemon Juice

Lemon Juice being rich in Vitamin C is an excellent remedy for sore throat and aids in digestion and controls blood sugar, and also promoted weight loss. It is used for various culinary and non-culinary purposes all over the world. Lemon juice is known to reduce or even reverse the effects of excessive alcohol consumption and intoxication.
In drink mixing, fresh lemon juice brings a tangy zing to so many classic drinks and in fact, it's the most used ingredient in drink mixing other than the liquors of course.

Scotch Whisky

Scotch Whisky or simply Scotch is one of the most famous traditional whisky, the other being Irish Whiskey, Canadian Whisky, American Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey, Japanese Whisky and Australian Whisky.

Just like in Ireland ( Uisce Beatha ), the Scottish word for Whisky is a derivative of the Scottish Gaelic word Uisge Beatha, meaning the Water of Life.

Scotch Whiskey is a Geographically Identified Product and there are regulations that has to be met for a Whisky to be labeled a Scotch Whisky.

Traditionally Scotch Whisky is made from malted barley, but there had been deviation and variations too. A distinctive characteristic of a Scotch Whisky is drying of the malted barley over a peat fire, that attributes a smoky aroma to the Whisky. post distillation, maturation or aging is done in oak barrels previously used for bourbon whiskey, Sherry, Wine, Fortified Wine, Rum and other Spirits. This Aging process that spans years is the largest contributing factor that impact the flavour of the Whisky.

To be labeled a Scotch, a Whisky has to be pass several guidelines and production standards designed by the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009.

• 1. Comprises a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 40% (80 US proof)
• 2. Contains no added substances, other than water and plain (E150A) caramel colouring
• 3. Is produced at a distillery in Scotland from water and malted barley (to which only whole grains of other cereals may be added) all of which have been:
  • 3.1 Converted at that distillery to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems
  • 3.2 Distilled at an alcoholic strength by volume of less than 94.8% (190 US proof)
  • 3.3 Fermented at that distillery only by adding yeast
  • 3.4 Processed at that distillery into a mash
• 4. Is wholly matured in an excise warehouse in Scotland in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 litres (185 US gal; 154 imp gal) for at least three years
• 5. Retains the colour, aroma, and taste of the raw materials used in, and the method of, its production and maturation

Green Chartreuse

If there is any liqueur shrouded in mystery and steeped in history of European medieval culture of alcoholic medicine making, be it eau de vie or uisce beatha, the history of the monks of different orders who spent their time in identifying herbs and their benefits, Chartreuse would be the forerunner.

Chartreuse gets its name after the monks of the Carthusian Order head quartered in Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in Grenoble, France. It is a distilled alcohol aged with 130 herbs, plants and flowers, with a recipe that's to this day, a closely kept secret that only two monks can know, at any given time. These are the monks that mix the botanicals.

The recipe of this Elixir Vegetal was presented to Carthusian monks by François Hannibal d'Estrées, a marshall of artillery, during French King Henry IV, in 1605. Since then, through ups and downs, exiles and returns, the monks have held to their secret tightly and once were producing Chartreuse in exile from Spain.

After their exile in 1793 the Carthusian monks returned to France in 1816, and the manuscript to the elixir that was secretly passed on when the monks carrying it were arrested, were passed on back to them, they started producing Chartreus from the Monastry.

They were exiled again in 1903 and they took refuge in Tarragona, Catalonia and the monks started producing it with the label Liqueur fabriquée à Tarragone par les Pères Chartreux, until their return to France and regaining control of the distillery at the Monastry a few decades later.

Blue Curacao Liqueur

Curaçao is a liqueur flavored with the dried peel of the bitter orange laraha. It's been a popular liqueur for more than 150 years, the Dutch East India Company created this orange liqueurs by steeping orange peels in alcohol from the island of Curaçao and called it Curaçao liquor, unlike Triple Sec, Curacao has added spices and herbs to the orange and Curaçao comes in a variety of colours such as clear, orange or blue.

Blue Curaçao being the most used of them, in cocktails. Although Curacao is an orange tinted liquor, Blue Curacao is a regular Curacao dyed bright blue to give it a striking appearance, and thus is a very popular cocktail mixer, whenever a striking colour is desired.

Blue Curacao is usually around 25% ABV.

Blue Curacao is essentially Orange Liqueur tinted Blue, the colour doesn't influence the taste and thus Orange Curacao is interchangeable with Blue Curacao in recipes, if the colour is not important in the appearance.

NOTE: Blue Curacao being an Orange Flavoured Blue Liqueur, it's primary purpose in a cocktail is introducing the Orange flavour and the striking sky blue to the drink, so, if a bottle of Blue Curacao liqueur is something you are not planning to buy right now, you can manage with the Blue Curacao Syrup.
It would add the same flavour and colour profile to the cocktail, all we need to do is simply count for the alcohol absent in the syrup and account for it.