The Spirits #129: The Hurricane

Or: How to improve upon a classic

For the month of May, I am offering the chance to sign up as a paid subscriber to the Spirits for ever. That’s correct. For only £35 per year (or £3.50 per month), you will have access to the full archive of Cabinet posts (these are deep dives into such exciting ingredients as Amaretto, Crème de Banane, Fernet-Branca and Bénédictine). You’ll also receive regular future dispatches on mastering th classics - and you can join me in exclusive subscriber chats too. MOREOVER anyone (from the UK) who subscribes before the end of May will be automatically entered into a prize draw for a bottle of Ancho Reyes Poblano Chile Liqueur (RRP £42.50)… which will be the subject of the next issue of the Cabinet.

I am only able to offer up the Spirits for free due to the generous support of my paid subscribers; so you might see this as a bit like buying the occasional round - or doing your bit for Martini-drinking civilisation. End of pitch!

🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸

~ THE HURRICANE ~

Crushed ice
One passion fruit (~25ml pulp)
50ml dark rum
15ml lime juice
15ml grenadine
Dash Peychaud’s bitters

First prepare your glass: fill a 250-300ml volume vessel with crushed ice and place in the freezer while you make the drink as follows. Scoop out a passion fruit, pulp, seeds and all into the shaker and add the rum, juice, etc. Add a couple of cubes and ‘whip shake’ until thoroughly mixed. Now fine strain the mixture into the prepared glass. Garnish with a cherry and lime wedge on a stick. I always think an inside-out cocktail umbrella is a witty touch if you have one which I don’t.

Some Hurricane notes:

1) The Hurricane is a weird one. It exists in many forms, a little like the Mai Tai, a sort all-purpose tropical emoji of a drink. The classic, authentic, OG Hurricane? It originates in Pat O’Brian’s, New Orleans, and it’s 4oz dark rum, 2oz passion fruit syrup, 2oz lemon juice, shaken, served over crushed ice in the eponymous Hurricane glass. That’s a lot of rum! And a lot of syrup! But divide it in half and you basically have a rum sour with a bit of extra tropical business.

2) Actually, the passion fruit syrup in those original Hurricanes arrived in the more specific form of red Fassionola. What on God’s green Earth is Fassionola? It was a proprietary tropical syrup that came in red, green and gold varieties and was once popular at US soda fountains like the one Buster Keaton where used to work (below). Since red Fassionola is no longer manufactured, it has tended to morph into passionfruit syrup in later Hurricane recipes - but actually, in the historical fassionola reconstructions I’ve seen (e.g. by Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry), the passion fruit is secondary to pomegranate in the ingredients (and there’s guava, papaya and pineapple in there too). Other reconstructions go big on the red fruits too. I came to the conclusion that fresh passion fruit plus grenadine (i.e. pomegranate syrup) would capture the spirit of the fassionola but retain the freshness that you and I love so well in our modern cocktails. .

3) Passionfruit syrup, I should say, is an excellent ingredient for messing around with - especially if you like rum. British readers should head to Waitrose and buy a bottle of the French brand Teisseire for a fiver or so; I suspect French readers will be able to procure it for less. Not sure about the rest of you. Perhaps you’re lucky enough to live somewhere the real thing grows?

4) The original recipe asks for “dark Jamaican rum”. Later bartenders have often opted for half light rum, half dark rum - or even three different rums in concert. By all means use what you have but I’d suggest going darker and funkier if you can and maybe lobbing in a tot of overproof too?

5) The Peychaud’s bitters is my addition - partly for its fetching redness, partly for its New Orleansness, and partly because it just goes really well in Tiki drinks, almost like Angostura and absinthe in one.

6) A final note on glassware. Hurricane glasses (aka Pina Colada glasses) are usually extremely large, c.450-760ml, which I consider a little American. You might like to search instead for a Poco Grande glass, which has a similarly fetching ogee but tends to come in at a more respectable 350-375ml. It’s surprisingly hard to find respectable sizes of glass. People are so greedy. It’s a shame.

🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
🧑‍🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The full A-Z recipe archive is here. 
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.
🏥 And here is a list of trusted charities who are helping people in Gaza.

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CABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

🐿️ Amaretto
🧡 Aperol
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🕊️ Bénédictine
❄️ Brancamenta
🍌 Crème de Banane
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🫐 Crème de Cassis
🌷 Cynar
🌸Elderflower Liqueur
🏝️ Falernum
🦅 Fernet-Branca
🌿 Green Chartreuse
🐻 Kümmel
🍒 Maraschino
🌵 Mezcal
🦙 Pisco
🐂 Sherry
🌻 Suze

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THE PLAYLIST

It’s windy out there.

NB: This playlist (ideally) updates with fresh songs each week, rather in the manner of Spotify’s ‘Discover Weekly’ list. But this is personally curated by me. Save/download and you should have a fresh supply of cool music in perpetuity. I store all the archive lists in one long megaplaylists, which you can find here.

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SHOPPING LIST

Gin, Italian vermouth, Green Chartreuse 💎