When I learned about the planets in 3rd grade, it was Neptune that I fell in love with first. I was captivated by its beautiful shade of blue and by the fact that it was named after the Roman god of the sea. He was always my favorite. Neptune is an ice giant, along with its sister planet, Uranus, and it occupies the 8th position from the sun. In terms of size, if we go back to our analogy of the sun being as large as a front door, and Earth being a nickel, then Neptune would be as big as a baseball. A day on Neptune last about 16 hours (Starbucks alert) and it takes roughly 165 Earth years for it to rotate around the sun. As an ice giant, Neptune is made up of melted and solid ices that are a combination of water, ammonia and methane that surround a solid core that is the size of the planet Earth. Hydrogen, helium, and methane account for most of Neptune’s atmosphere, but since its color is deeper and bluer than that of Uranus, scientists suspect that there might be an additional component that is yet unknown. Mystery gas. As the mother of two sons, I’m very familiar with this. Neptune is the windiest planet in our solar system, with winds that are 3 times stronger than Jupiter’s and nine times stronger than Earth’s, causing great storms to swirl across the planet’s surface. Neptune is tilted to almost the same degree as Uranus, making its orbit somewhat wobbly, causing an intense magnetosphere with brilliant aurorae, and wild seasonal changes. The magnetic pull on Neptune is 27 times greater than it is on Earth. Imagine all the fun we could have playing with magnets! Neptune has 13 moons, the largest of which is Triton, and they are all named after assorted sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology. It also has six rings, but they are not nearly as visible as Saturn’s.

In terms of astrology, Neptune rules Pisces, one of the most intuitive signs of the entire Zodiac. For the rest of us, Neptune influences our dreams and inspirations, feelings of psychic connection, intuition, and enlightenment. It can also cause confusion and the belief that our illusions are real, so we must remember to keep our eyes open in the areas where Neptune appears in our astrological chart. At the moment, Neptune is in retrograde and will remain so until November 22nd. This is literally an eye-opening event for all of us since a Neptune retrograde removes the illusions and forces us to see things much more clearly that we were before. For today’s cocktail, I went with mezcal, which always seems mysterious to me, and well-suited for one of the outermost planets in our solar system. I had to achieve that deep blue color, so I used a blend of Blue Curaçao and Crème de Violette, both from Giffard. I balanced it with some lime juice, making this an unusual riff on The Last Word Cocktail that actually worked. Cheers, everyone!

The Deepest Blue

1 oz Del Maguey Vida Mezcal
½ oz Giffard Crème de Violette
½ oz Giffard Blue Curaçao
1 oz lime juice

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously until very cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lime twist. Enjoy!