Live Long Enough and Hpnotiq Will Return
Is the infamous early 2000s blue liqueur having a comeback? What a time to be alive!
“Hpnotiq is back?” asked Punch, in a strange article posted this week. The answer? Maybe? “A handful of bars are reaching for the aquamarine bottles yet again,” and some are making updated versions of the Incredible Hulk, a venomous early aughts “cocktail” that combined Hpnotiq and Hennessey Cognac. Overall, not a particularly convincing argument that a renaissance is under way.
The Punch post is just one of several articles I’ve seen over the past year or so suggesting that the infamous electric-blue liqueur is having a moment. I mean, people have been actually predicting Hpnotiq comeback for more than a decade. In 2015, AdWeek reported, “Once a club staple, the spirit now looks to nostalgia.”
In what I guess we can call The Golden Age of Hpnotiq (2001-2009), the liqueur was a standard in hip-hop lyrics. In fact, there are at least 163 songs that name-check Hpnotiq. (Everyone from Drake to Kanye to Eminem to Karol G has used it in a rhyme). This would be the same era as Lil Jon’s “Crunk Juice” (a poisonous mix of Cognac and an energy drink like Red Bull) and Busta Rhymes’ “Pass The Courvoisier, Part II.” Y2K, baby.
So, what is Hpnotiq? Well, kids, just read the label on the slender bottle, which explains it’s “A Refreshing Blend of Premium French Vodka, Exotic Fruit Juices, and a Touch of Cognac.” It’s only 17% alcohol by volume, cloying, and tastes sorta pineapple, sorta passionfruit, sorta mango, sorta citrus. Honestly, Hpnotiq tastes…blue? But a crazy, artificial blue never before seen in nature.
According to a 2019 “oral history of Hpnotiq” in Mel Magazine (which also declared a “comeback” and a “Hpnaissance”), the liqueur in the “sex-toy-shaped bottle” was created in 2001 by Raphael Yakoby, a 25-year-old college dropout with zero business experience, who was living on Long Island—which, of course. “I was walking through Bloomingdale’s and saw this blue perfume in a beautiful bottle on a counter, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be great for a liqueur product?’” Yakoby told the New York Post in 2007. It was an instant hit. By the following year Yakoby was worth $50 million.
You started seeing Hpnotiq pop in all sorts of cocktail abominations: A Hpnotiq Margarita where it subbed for Cointreau, a Hpnotiq “Martini” with coconut rum and pineapple juice, and the aforementioned Incredible Hulk, which turned an angry green when Cognac was added. Cocktail menus were populated by these sorts of drinks in the mid-to-late aughts. If you ever wonder why the classic cocktail renaissance happened, well kids, it was a reaction to monstrosities such as the Emerald Ice (Hpnotiq floated on top of Sprite, lime juice, and Sour Apple Pucker). Now, I guess, the pendulum could be swinging back, away from the whole speakeasy-craft-cocktail thing and toward…Hpnotiq?
In Hpnotiq’s defense, I will say that in the category of bad, cloying liqueurs, it’s one of the better ones. Is that faint praise? Well, yes, but still praise all the same. And to be fair, with the brandy category in such a dire crisis, it might be time for Cognac to embrace Hpnotiq and the Incredible Hulk (and maybe even Crunk Juice) once again.
For someone who covered spirits during those heady days of the 2000s, Hpnotiq brings back warm memories of a time when the the spirits market was ecletic, the wild west, and people were willing to buy and try anything weird and new. This was long before celebrity tequila, before a million “new gins” crowded shelves, before every dude became a bourbon aficionado. Back then, a small handful of entrepreneurs seemed more apt to bring in crazy, off-the-beaten-path products, with a few hits (St-Germain elderflower liqueur, for instance) amid many misses. I wrote about this era a couple of years ago in an essay called “Cleaning Out the Liquor Cabinet”:
How about a stone pine liqueur from the Alps? How about a peanut rum liqueur from St. Lucia? How about Dutch genever in heavy clay bottle? How about a root-beer-ish-flavored “amaro” meant to historically recreate early American root tea? How about a Polish vodka made with bison grass that’s banned in the U.S. because it has a chemical that causes blood thinning?
Hpnotiq grew out of that time, and its sheer staying power is sincerely impressive.
All of which still fails to answer the question: Is Hpnotiq having a comeback? My only recent experience with Hpnotiq is when my brother gave a bottle to my son Wes as a joke gift as he went off to college. I asked Wes whatever happened to the bottle. “I drank it once and it sat in my closet for like a year,” he said.
Was it a Gen Z thing? I texted Everyday Drinking’s resident Gen Z drinks trend specialist Annie Arriaga. “So is Hpnotiq back or not?”
“Asking the wrong gal. Never left for me.” (Annie, who is from Miami, suggests however that it might be a Miami thing.)
In the end, whether you are a Hpnotiq hater or a fan, I invite you into the comments to share your memories, nightmares, and above all, cocktail recipes involving the infamous electric-blue booze.
Maybe Hynotiq really is making a comeback because it's "social media gorgeous", a la Starbucks Refreshers, matcha, ube, etc?
Anyway, here's my vile riff on a Hypnotiq margarita: Pour 1.5 oz tequila, 0.5 oz Hypnotiq, and 1 oz lime juice over ice. Top with Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Tajin on the rim, garnish with a lime wedge.
I’m into it