Our unique cocktail is based on work by scientists at the University of California, Berkley, who recently announced the discovery of a new colour — named “Olo” — a blue-green hue like a “profoundly saturated teal” that sits outside the range of what the human eye can usually see.1 The researchers used laser pulses to stimulate participants' retinas, pushing their perception beyond normal limits to elicit “a colour beyond the natural human gamut.”2

Austin Roorda, a professor of optometry and vision scientist on the Berkeley team that created the new hue, says, “It’s impossible to recreate a colour that matches Olo. Any colour that you can reproduce would just pale by comparison." He did try to approximate the colour by mixing liqueurs, including Midori and Blue Curaçao, but found the concoction to be a poor representation, and the taste “a bit foul".3

British artist Stuart Semple, who previously developed the "blackest black" and "pinkest pink" acrylic paints, has also tried to imitate the new colour by mixing pigments together with fluorescent optical brighteners that absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit visible blue light, making materials appear whiter or brighter. The result is "a very weird kind of glowy teal."

Inspired by this work, Spencer @spencernocturne had an idea to produce a cocktail that would imitate Olo using a technique he developed years ago at a place some of you may recall, Nocturne, on Queen West. By combining Roorda's liqueurs together with edible ingredients that absorb and re-emit UV light, we created concoctions that effectively glows!

With help from our resident mixologist, Toby @tobyzconfetti, to further refined the taste, we have balanced the flavours to produce a pleasantly smooth and sweet cocktail.  Pete @gobsthezombie remarks that the cocktail tastes rather like a Jolly Rancher, perhaps somewhere between the green and blue flavours.

The new cocktail is appropriately named the Jolly Olo, and is available to curious cocktail enthusiasts for a limited time this Spring.

Not only can you see the new colour, now you can taste it too! 

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