The Original Original Hurricane

So I had a Hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s and it tasted like someone had mixed rum and simple syrup with a package of cherry Jello mix. Horrendous.

Here’s the problem: There’s nothing natural in this drink except for the rum. The rest of what goes into the drink come from a bad mix. The original Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane called for light rum, dark rum, passion fruit syrup, orange juice, fresh lime juice, and a bit of sugar and pomegranate grenadine. Nowadays, they make it with Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane rum (wouldn’t be cheap stuff, would it?) and a reconstituted liquid called “Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane mix.”

So what’s in the Hurricane mix?

Reading from the package: Sugar, citric acid, xanthan gum, artificial flavors, fruit and vegetable oils, tri-calcium phosphate, and food coloring.

In other words, the awful Hurricane I had was basically a glass of cheap rum and nasty chemicals. No wonder it tasted so bad.

You can actually buy a 9-oz. package of Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Cocktail Mix (“Have Fun!”), which makes about a quart, and is the same stuff they use at the bar, but why would you?

My go-to cocktail recipe book, drink’-ol-o-gy: The Art and Science of the Cocktail, actually has a pretty good recipe for the Hurricane, although it calls for half an ounce of passion fruit juice, which is actually almost impossible to buy (most such tropical juices are blends that include other fruit, like mango, pineapple, etc.), so you’d probably have to juice your own passion fruit, if you could even find passion fruit. I think the thing to do is buy passion fruit syrup; both Moni and Torani make excellent passion fruit syrups.

With that in mind, here’s how I’d go about making an original version of the original Hurricane:

The Original Original Hurricane

1 1/2 ounces good light rum

1 1/2 ounces good dark rum

1 ounce fresh orange juice

1 ounce fresh lime juice

2 ounces passion fruit syrup

1 teaspoon grenadine

Pour all ingredients into a shaker half-filled with crushed ice; strain into an ice-filled Hurricane glass. Garnish with an orange slice and cherry.