Wrapping up our tour of the drinks of New Orleans we finish with the Hurricane, one of those maligned tourist trap drinks from Pat O'Brien's that you have probably had but not in the same thought process as "cocktail". The problem with this drink when you get it at Pat's is that it comes out neon red and tastes about as natural as it looks. This is not to say that you can't put down a few of them in the right mood, as long as you don't mind the FDC Red #666. What really turned me off last year when we went to Pat's is that they already had the Hurricane glasses par-filled with Hurricane, so that when you order it all they have to do is add ice. Where is the love in that?! It's like going to the cafeteria where they have the half-filled iced tea glasses lined up and ready to go.

Although you won't be seeing this picture until we resolve our technology malfunction, we served up our Hurricane in a Patty O's Hurricane glass, available at any thrift store in town for approx $.99.

With Dale's recipe, we get to experience this cocktail in its natural state. A blend of light and dark rums, with fresh orange, pineapple, and lime juices. The recipe also calls for passion fruit juice or syrup; for lack of fresh passion fruit, I used the syrup but I chose to use Philibert Routin 1883 which is a higher quality syrup than most (ie no artificial colors or flavors). The drink, I have to say, was delicious. I remember that we tried to make the Hurricane a few Mardi Gras ago, following the DDG recipe, but I must have taken some unwise shortcut because the result definitely did not taste like this. I think the secret is in using all fresh-pressed juices, which is labor intensive when referring to pineapple, but totally worth it.