If the storm is coming, we'll need more rum

With Hurricane Ike coming this way, time to stock up on provisions. To make a proper New Orleans Hurricane, the Webtender has the following recipe:

Ingredients:
1 oz White rum
1 oz Jamaican Rum
1 oz Bacardi 151 proof rum
3 oz Orange juice with pulp
3 oz unsweetened Pineapple juice
1/2 oz Grenadine
Crushed Ice
Mixing instructions:
Combine all ingredients, mix well (shake or stir). Pour over crushed ice in Hurricane glass. Best enjoyed through small straw. Garnish with fruit wedge if desired.

The Hurricane originated in a New Orleans bar called Pat O'Briens.

Certainly one of the most visible beverages in the French Quarter, this bright red, rum-based drink is the de facto emblem for the bar that created it, Pat O’Brien’s (718 St. Peter St., 504-525-4823), and has been widely copied around town. Highly potent, the drink has been known to supercharge a night on the town and brighten up even the most overcast day in the Quarter.

The story of the drink’s origin holds that, due to difficulties importing Scotch during World War II, liquor salesmen forced bar owners to buy up to 50 cases of their much more abundant rum in order to secure a single case of good whiskey. The barmen at Pat O’Brien’s soon came up with an alluring recipe to clear through their bulging surplus of rum. When they decided to serve it up in a tall, jaunty glass shaped like a hurricane lamp, the hurricane cocktail was born. Today, even the glass itself is a souvenir of New Orleans, and servers at Pat O’Brien’s will helpfully box yours to go when you’re finished.

For a slightly different and less potent version, Art of the Drink has an instructional video worth checking out.

Happy Birthday George Will

Happy Birthday to Chicago Cubs fan, conservative columnist, and television personality George Will. My brush with greatness, or my biggest geek moment:

I was in New Orleans for the Republican National Convention in 1992. I got on the elevator at the Superdome and there in the back of the elevator was George Will. And he saw that I recognized him. I wanted to say something, anything, but the only words that came to mind were, "You're George Will." And of course, since he already knew that, I didn't bother telling him.

So we just kinda stared at each other until it was time to get off the elevator. Then I turned to someone with whom I was going to the convention and said what were still the only words that came to my starstruck mind, "That was George Will."

And she said, "Who's George Will?"