Kurious Oranj

On this date in 1713 the French invaded Curaçao under Jacques Cassard. As you may recall, 1713 was the year of the Triple Sec's Gone Dry Scare, and the French had to do something for cocktails requiring orange liqueur. These were primitive days in the history of mixology, and chemists' failed experiments concocting the lime of the ancient grand marnier hung like albatross about their necks. Even in France properly pronouncing Cointreau was too tricky, and with the Euro not creaming the dollar in those days, since the Euro wasn't even a twinkle in a Pean's eye, it was too expensive to justify its use for mixing.

Over such things, history and wars are made. In fact, there's little doubt many a martini was consumed by some folks in our very government leading up to the days of the Iraq War. (Tea-totaler Bush, we know, is just drunk on God.)