Homemade Hurricane

To tell the truth, I was dreading this drink. I've had a few Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's and found them to be overly sweet, sticky red ripoffs. Their only saving grace is that they're the least girly drink on a menu so girly you should have to put on a dress to order. (Except for the Bloody Mary, of course.)

But there's more than one way to make a Hurricane.

Here's the recipe I used: 1 ounce each of vodka, gin, light rum, Amaretto and Triple Sec, plus half an ounce of Bacardi 151. (Seems like overkill, but what do you want? It's in the recipe.) Add grapefruit juice and pineapple juice, then top with Grenadine.

I substituted orange juice for pineapple juice, and it worked just fine.

This mixed into a fresh, sweet cocktail with almost no alcohol taste at all. Take that, you French Quarter tourist trap!

Here's an Emeril Lagasse recipe I found for making Hurricanes for a group:

12 ounces light rum
12 ounces dark rum
10 ounces Grenadine
10 ounces orange juice
10 ounces sour mix or lime juice
3 tbsp fine sugar
One orange

Stir all the ingredients except the orange, then cut up the orange and drop it in.

Manly or Girly? Still girly
Appearance: shades of red, pink and yellow
Consistency: regular cocktail
Taste: Sweet, slightly fruity
Stomach acceptance: Fine
Good drink for: Watching the krewes roll by
Hangover factor: High. Also high — chance of bright red projectile vomit.
Would I actually order this in public? No, but I would make one at a party.

Weights and measures

You see, I'm not one of those "precision" people in the kitchen. If I need to boil something in water, I don't care how much water the instructions tell me to boil — I just fill the pot until it looks like there's enough. I add spices in the "about that much" measurement; even if I cook a frozen pizza, the cook time on the package doesn't match the actual time that I cook the thing.

So I didn't pay much attention to the ounces contained in my shot glasses when mixing drinks. Even if I wasn't pouring precisely 1.5 ounces of bourbon into my highball, for instance, I could still keep the ratios intact.

And then I came to the Long Island Iced Tea and the Hurricane.

Even with the mixers, the concoctions I came up with could've sterilized surgical equipment. So I took it upon myself to determine my shot glasses' volumes, which turned out to be 2 ounces. Which means in both of the drinks mentioned above, I was pouring 10 ounces of alcohol into a 16-ounce drink.

That's not drinking. That's "Leaving Las Vegas" territory. However, I can now say that my steak knives are sterile.

Kool-Aid!

I can't decide whether I like this drink or I don't. Here's the breakdown:

It's super sugary sweet.

But,

It's so super sugary sweet that I can't taste the rum.

I spilled a drop and I swear it stained the counter top within 1/1000th of a second.

But,

It's pretty.

It's sneaky.

And,

It's sneaky.

So, I think I would have another Hurricane, if I were in Pappadeaux and feeling girly and festive and not driving for the next couple of days.

Here's What You Need to Make a Hurricane:

• Shaker
• Ice
• 1 oz rum
• 1 oz light rum
• 2 oz pineapple juice
• 3 oz hurricane mix
• cherry
  

Here's How Anne Made the Highball:
I have mentioned that I'm too cheap to buy two of something when I already have one version in the house, right? So, I didn't buy dark rum. I just used 2 oz of the light rum. It was fine. Watch the mix, though. 3 oz of it was way too much for my drink. I suspect that 2 oz would have been plenty sweet. And, I ended up adding much more pineapple juice into the swirl. So, mix everything except the cherry in the shaker and pour into a glass with ice. Decorate with cherry.

Manly or Girly? Oh, girly. Hey, guys, I know you're in a party atmosphere when you're drinking a Hurricane, but it's a Girly Drink
Appearance: A pulsating, punishing red not often found in nature
Consistency: Syrupy
Taste: Kool-Aid. Fruit Punch. Red. Sugar and a little bit of pineapple
Stomach acceptance: Iffy at best
Good drink for: Stormy weather on the coast where men wear Hawaiian shirts without any sense of irony
Hangover factor: High
Would I actually order this in public? Maybe

Tomorrow's Assignment: Long Island Iced Tea

Homework:

• Shaker
• Ice cubes
• 1 oz vodka
• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz white rum
• 1 oz tequila
• 1/2 oz triple sec
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  
• 1/2 cup cola, or to taste
• 2 lemon wedges