The Hurricane is another true classic of New Orleans even though there is said to have been a cocktail called Hurricane served at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Queens. Little is known about this version apart from it probably being made with rum and that it was served in a hurricane glass.

The second time a cocktail called Hurricane saw the light of day was at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans during the 1940s. This is the version that is still served today and it came into being out of necessity. During and after WWII Scotch and Bourbon were hard to come by but New Orleans had rum arriving from the Caribbean by the boatload. The spirits distributors thought up a clever way to deal with this. They required the bars to buy several cases of rum with each case of Scotch. This left Pat 0’Brien’s with more rum than they knew what to do with. Benson “Pat” O’Brien and his partner Charlie Cantrell, probably together with their head bartender Louis Culligan, decided to create a new cocktail to help use up the excess cases of rum. A potent cocktail with 4 oz (120 ml) rum.

The hurricane glass, giving the cocktail its name, is modeled after the classic hurricane lantern. This glass is called Riflesso and was designed by Isabel Antonia Giampietro in 1958.