Well, Hurricane Tropical Storm Windy Day Irene has passed, leaving Squirrel Farts HQ unscathed, aside from a mild flickering of electricity, and an intermittent loss of cable and internet services. Thankfully, a supply of craft beers, cocktail-destined citrus fruits and chips kept the Lady Friend and I well prepared for a weekend of couch time. Saturday wound up being just plain rainy, and we were able to venture out for sustenance at the Union Brewhouse, where we are both working our way through their 99 beer list. (If you get through all 99 you get a plaque!) Sunday was a tad breezy, though nowhere near the doomsday scenario everyone was soiling themselves over for the several days prior to Irene’s landfall, and we worked through my surplus DVR stash of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, though some midnight snacker had devastated my precious chip supply.


Naturally, the cocktail of choice for the day had to be the Hurricane, and was apparently a popular status update on Facebook. Everyone’s clever. However, I tend to think that very few actually had a Hurricane, and still fewer made their own. This is one of those drinks that many claim to have invented, and recipes vary drastically, only agreeing on a few key ingredients, such as rum (though I did see a version that included vodka. Le sigh). The popular origin is credited to Pat O’Brien’s Bar in New Orleans, sometime in the late 1930s/ early 1940s. Allegedly, scotch was hard to acquire, due those rascally Krauts stirring up trouble AGAIN, so bars were forced to order a large number of cases of rum before the distributors would sell them the limited supplies of peaty whisky. Pat O’Brien’s made up a recipe containing a ton of rum, poured in a bunch of fruit juice, and served it in hurricane lamp glasses. Um. That’s it.

The Hurricane
(adapted from Dale DeGroff’s recipe)

– 1.5oz light rum (Bully Boy white)
– 1.5oz dark rum (Meyer’s Dark)
– 3/4oz fresh lime juice
– 2oz passion fruit juice
– 2oz fresh orange juice
– 2oz pineapple juice
– 1oz raw simple syrup
– 2 dashes Angostura bitters
– Generous dash of grenadine

Shake like trees in the wind, pour like water into a flooding basement, and drink like there’s no tomorrow.

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