Being blue or making blue - what does the colour have to do with alcohol?
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In German "being blue" does not mean "being sad", but "being drunk". But why are you actually blue when you're drunk? The expression "being blue" for being drunk actually has something to do with the colour blue.
In the Middle Ages, the native plant dyer's woad (Isatis tinctoria) was used to make blue dye. In addition to woad, you also needed sunny, warm weather, alcohol and urine to make blue dye. The dyers therefore first drank the alcohol and then urinated it out again. This allowed the dyers to kill two birds with one stone...
The leaves of the dyer's woad were placed in a vat and covered with liquid. The dyers therefore drank beer all day long - and urinated into the vat. But fermentation alone was not enough, strong sunlight was also needed to produce blue colour.
That's why the dyers' working day on the day of blue colouring looked like this: Lying in the sun, drinking lots of beer, urinating in the vat and stirring its content. The expression "being blue" (being drunk) comes from this activity. The expression "making blue" (skipping work) also comes from the same context, as the dyers hardly worked on the day of blue dyeing.
