The Hurricane, Two Ways
Scaling down the complexity of a too-many-ingredient tropical cocktail.
Tiki and tropical cocktails have a reputation for being complicated. In many ways, that reputation is deserved. All those syrups! All those juices! All those rums!
Remember the Fog Cutter we looked at last year? That’s a seven ingredient drink in its standard form. Even if you have the materials on hand, who has time to make all the fresh juice that tiki standards require? I like making big batches of fresh juice more than most people, but even I don’t always have the energy to juice pineapples, grapefruits, limes, oranges, and so forth. And unlike most people, I have a professional interest in this stuff.
But tropical drinks don’t have to be so complicated — at least not always. In some cases, they can be reduced and simplified without losing the underlying idea. And the simplified version might even be an improvement.
Case in point: the Hurricane.
One might argue that it’s not really a tiki drink since it originated in 1940s New Orleans, but it’s a complex tropical drink that has been adopted and adapted by some tiki bars, most notably Martin Cate’s Smuggler’s Cove. In its conventional form, the Hurricane is one of those too-many-ingredient drinks you definitely don’t have time to make. But Cate’s version takes a multiple-rum, multiple-juice, multiple-syrup drink and compacts it all into a simple three-ingredient package that is, in my opinion, superior to the original. It’s one of the simplest tropical drinks of any note, and one of the best.
Hurricanes and Hurricanes
As I have mentioned before, I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Hurricanes — the weather systems, not the cocktails — were pretty common features of my childhood. We evacuated every so often; we had days off from school; trees fell down; there were chainsaws and days without power. It was Florida in the 1990s.
And thus you will not be surprised to hear that Hurricanes — the cocktails, not the weather systems — were pretty common drinks at pool parties, beach bars, and, of course, hurricane parties, which are exactly what you think they are. Again, it was Florida in the 1990s.
As you might imagine, most of the Hurricanes that were served in 1990s and early 00s Florida were not exactly rigorously constructed. Many of them were just cheap rum and juice, perhaps with some syrup or sour mix tossed in. In many cases, a batch of Hurricanes would just be a cooler of Malibu mixed with orange juice over ice…and that’s it. Rum and orange juice over ice is a simple pleasure, and I certainly wouldn’t object to anyone who appreciates such a concoction on a hot day at the beach, that’s not the vibe we’re going for here.
I tell this story, however, because those rum-and-orange juice Hurricanes were, in their own way, attempts to simplify the original by taking the idea of the drink and turning it into something more manageable. The people pouring those drinks may not have known it, but there is, in fact, a fairly complex recipe for this cocktail that involves fresh juice and syrups and some unusual ingredients.