Where was the Hurricane Cocktail invented? There is more than one answer to this, but the most popular one is – at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans!
During Prohibition, the world-famous Pat O’Brien’s was a speakeasy called Club Tipperary. To enter the place, you had to use a password, which happened to be “Storm’s brewing”. Two days before the repeal of Prohibition, the club reopened as Pat O’Brien’s.
Spirits such as bourbon were naturally hard to come by, so patrons at the speakeasies drank rum smuggled in from the Caribbean. Once Prohibition was over, rum lost its popularity as people gravitated towards the grain-based spirits they had so missed. However, during WWII many of the American distilleries were busy with the war effort, and the production of Scotch was also interrupted by the war. Consequently, rum, again, was all people could drink.
Once the war was over, people wanted to go back to drinking Scotch and bourbon, but those were in shortage and rum was plentiful. Liquor distributors even made buyers purchase a certain number of rum barrels for every whiskey case.
This is where Pat O’Brien became creative and invented a cocktail that will help move the rum quicker. Little did they know how popular the drink would become. The original mix was lemon juice, passionfruit syrup and a double shot of rum. However, if you ask at Tujague’s – who happen to be the inventors of another cocktail, the grasshopper – the original recipe included red wine, honey, and bitters as well. Regardless, a legend was born by necessity, creativity and a passion for getting tipsy.