Hurricane

Rum, passion fruit, and fresh lemon — Pat O'Brien's wartime invention, WWII rationing forcing bars to buy surplus rum for every case of rationed whiskey.

The Hurricane was created by Pat O'Brien, who operated a bar at 718 St. Peter Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, during the early 1940s as a direct commercial response to the constraints of wartime spirit distribution. During World War II, whiskey production was curtailed as grain was redirected to food production and military use, and whiskey became scarce and expensive. Spirit distributors required bars to purchase several cases of freely available rum for every case of rationed whiskey they wished to obtain. O'Brien, faced with a surplus of rum he could not otherwise sell, developed a large, fruit-forward rum punch that could absorb significant quantities of the spirit in an appealing and commercially viable format. The drink's name came from the hurricane-lamp-shaped glass in which O'Brien served it — a tall, curved vessel resembling the glass bases of the kerosene hurricane lamps common in New Orleans' pre-electrification era. The Hurricane's combination of passion fruit syrup, fresh lemon juice, and rum created a drink sufficiently fruity and substantial to become a commercial success on Bourbon Street, where it has been served continuously since the 1940s. Pat O'Brien's bar, which eventually expanded to the property at 624 Bourbon Street where its current iteration operates, became one of the most visited bars in the United States.