Frozen Hurricane Slush

In the modern repository of cocktails, there is hardly an alcoholic beverage as innovative in its preparation, as unique in its taste and as exotic in its choice of ingredients as a Frozen Hurricane Slush. The beverage is a fruit lover’s heaven and a liquor enthusiast’s most serene dream of concoctions. No Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday celebration can ever be complete without this tropical whirlwind of a recipe.

This exquisite alcoholic beverage is made by blending white rum, dark rum, passion fruit juice, orange juice, triple sec, grenadine, fresh lime juice, and a whole lot of ice to make a smooth slushy concoction. The mixture is traditionally poured into a mason jar and garnished with a delectable orange slice and a resplendent piece of maraschino cherry.

It is believed that the entire idea of a slush, or a slushie, began in the 1950s when Omar Knedlik, a Dairy Queen franchise owner, invented the world’s first carbonated slushie machine. Knedlik’s slush soon became popular and following his creation of the Icee Company, mass production of the slushie machine began in America. In 1965, 7-Eleven signed a licensing deal with the Icee company to adopt the name Slurpee for the slushie machines they had purchased from Knedlik. By the 1970s, Slurpee machines revolutionised the way Americans preferred their drinks and soon innumerable flavour variations started to appear, including frozen alcoholic drinks.

As for the method of mixing rum variants and passion fruit to create the tropical Hurricane, the earliest mention of the cocktail can be traced back to the 1939 New York World’s Fair at the Hurricane Bar, but the original ingredients used are unknown. The more popular association the Hurricane cocktails have today is with Pat O’Brien’s bar in New Orleans. Legend has it that during the Prohibition era, alcohol was illegal. Patrons therefore could no longer waltz in and order their favourite booze but had to whisper a secret phrase at the entry – ‘Storms a Brewin’. It was during this period that O’Brien brainstormed a unique concoction of the only readily available liquor rum and exotic fruit juices to create a cocktail, which in tandem with the code of the day, was named the Hurricane. When the Hurricane’s world war era roots were reimagined with the cold war era U.S. food technology innovation, the modern masterpiece Frozen Hurricane Slush was born.