Hold the neutral grain alcohol and powder mix. Today on “Cocktail College,” we’re exploring how to properly make the Hurricane. Teaching us how to do so is New Orleans native and returning friend of the show, Neal Bodenheimer. Tune in for more.
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Neal Bodenheimer’s Hurricane Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ ounces white rum, such as Don Q
- ½ ounce aged rum, such as Appleton 12
- ¾ ounce fassinola (or homemade Hurricane syrup)
- ¾ ounce fresh lime juice
Directions
- Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
- Shake until well chilled.
- Strain into a chilled Hurricane glass filled with crushed ice.
- Garnish with a cocktail umbrella.
Check Out the Conversation Here
Tim McKirdy: All right, I’m going to kick this off. We’re going to get into it.
Neal Bodenheimer: All right.
T: He’s back for a second time here. But first time in the studio, it’s Neal Bodenheimer joining us today in New York. Neal, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us again.
N: Yeah, I’m thrilled to be here. I’m thrilled to be in the studio. It’s a lot easier to be face to face than it is to do it over Zoom.
T: It’s so much more personable, isn’t it?
N: Yeah. Absolutely.
T: I believe last time, though, you may have been recording — jog my memory here — but I think you were guest number 3, I want to say. I think you were recording in a cabin somewhere. It sounded like a very nice little situation.
N: Yeah, so I was up outside of Asheville, North Carolina and it was beautiful. It was great, but I don’t think that our signal was very good.
T: Did kind of test the limits of technology on that one, but it was good. It came out great. That one, by the way, is the Sazerac. One of the most listened to episodes of all time here on “Cocktail College.”
N: Really.
T: Yeah, if you haven’t heard it already. Yeah, people love it. If you haven’t heard it, guys, go check it out. But don’t go yet, stick around for this one. Neal, today’s is the story of the Hurricane. To borrow a few choice words from Bob Dylan, and while we won’t be covering Ruben Carter or Arthur Dexter Bradley, I’m sure at some point we will encounter a gentleman named Mr. Pat O’Brien. Hope I’m saying that right.
N: I think you’ve got that right.
T: Yeah. Mr. Pat O’Brien. And you know what, that Dylan referenced there, his name does kind of fit into that mold. Great song. If you have no idea what I’m talking about there, go and listen to it again after this. Before anything else, though, I’d like to kick us off today with a quote, see if you’re familiar with it.
N: Okay, I’m ready.
T: “The Hurricane is one of those cocktails that gets lumped together with the Hand Grenade and Frozen Daiquiri as a symbol of Bourbon Street debauchery. Here’s the difference though, I find the Hand Grenade a sickly sweet melon concoction, pretty irredeemable, but there’s a time and place for a Frozen Daiquiri and I really like a well-made Hurricane.” These are the words from your recent book about the cocktail today in question. First of all, congratulations on the new book. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that and also, yeah, we’re going to dive into that cocktail, that iconic drink, the Hurricane.
N: Well, yes, thank you very much. The book, it’s been a labor of love and I didn’t really want to write a book. I kind of backed into doing it and luckily the co-author of the book, Emily Timberlake, really made it fun to do the project and because of that it became a labor of love and really a love letter to New Orleans and its culture and its cocktails.
T: And what a city for that as well. Kind of reminds me, I was thinking about this earlier today when we covered the Vieux Carre, a previous episode. I’m, it’s a real tough one if you’re an iconic drink that comes out of New Orleans. You got some competition there, your Sazeracs, Vieux Carre, other ones too, and some of these others that we mentioned there from your book that maybe aren’t as deserving of as much serious attention. But yeah, the Hurricane, that book, New Orleans, tell us about it. Tell us about it. Tell us about the cultural kind of reference there and for anyone who’s not familiar with the drink itself, maybe what it kind of classically contains.
The History of the Hurricane
N: So the Hurricane is, I think, a pretty interesting story. Pat O’Brien was arguably running a speakeasy, and I think it’s pretty likely that he was, and ended up opening up a real bar in 1933 as everybody that was in the bar business before wanted to do after when it was legal. And he had a really famous spot and it was on Royal Street and then eventually he moved to where he is now or to where the bar is now. And so what is really fascinating about it is that the legend goes that if you wanted the good stuff, you had to buy the stuff that the distributor wanted to get rid of and they really wanted to get rid of the rum that they had. And Pat O’Brien really wanted whiskey and gin and all the hits of the era. And so allegedly, as the story goes in the early 1940s, he had a ton of rum that he had to figure out what to do with. And so you can see that he was inspired by some of the stuff, by the beginnings of Tiki, and he creates the Hurricane. And so the Hurricane is rum or rum blend and they think it was lemon for sure. And then there’s some question about what was in the mysterious syrup fassionola. And so there’s a lot of people that think strawberry. My business partner Kirk, who did a lot of research on the Hurricane to put one on at Cane & Table, he really thought that it was in the escapism that you see in tropical drinks that there was an effort to make a tropical syrup. And so he really believes in passion fruit, which you see in a lot of them, guava and then hibiscus.
T: Wow.
N: Yeah, and it’s great. It’s a tropical fruit syrup Rum Sour, and they are delicious. Now if you go to Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans in the experience that a lot of your listeners have probably had, that’s just not what you get there. And there, they have a high-volume business. They were like many places that have stood the test of time; they wanted to use food science to make their drinks easier to scale and they did. So it’s very likely that there’s probably not rum in it anymore. It’s probably a version of grain alcohol. It could be rum. I wouldn’t say — I’ve never been back behind the bar at Pat O’Brien’s — but it’s definitely a powdered mix. So because of that, it’s really not true to what the cocktail was originally. And as Robert said in his piece, there was really a hesitation for local bartenders to make Hurricanes because you felt like it was Pat O’Brien’s thing and you didn’t want to do it. But then ethically you’re looking at it and you’re, shouldn’t we just make this and make it good? And we started off at Cane & Table, in the early years, we would make a very simple passion fruit Hurricane. And then when Kirk dug in, I think it was around 2017 or 2018 and he said, “I really want to get this right.” So I think he hit the nail on the head. So we have one at Peychaud’s too that we decided to use a commercially available fassionola reproduction that Cocktail & Sons makes. And that’s more strawberry and tropical fruit forward. So they’re very different and they’re both very good. So it’s fun because you get to play with the rum blend and the rum blend is going to kind of decide where you end up going with the Hurricane.
T: And we’ll definitely get into that. And just to pull a few threads together here for context. So first of all, we did mention your book up top there. Can you just remind us of the name here of the book? We’ll get into it a little bit later as well. But we did mention it and I don’t think we called out the name there.
N: Sure. “Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em.”
T: Fantastic. And also you called out an article that Robert Simonson had written for context there. That was something he wrote for VinePair. I want to say it was a few months back now, but just on this topic of a wave of quality Hurricanes now re-emerging or emerging in New Orleans, which I think is between the book and that piece and that trend that’s happening, just the perfect reason for us to be here today chatting about the Hurricane. So check that one out on VinePair, too, as well when you have the time folks. But you did mention a few things; rum blends. The Hurricane mix, as I’m just calling it here, but fassionola you said right, might be something that can be used, is one of the first things you’re looking for from this drink; it’s kind of an iconic red color. If people are recreating it, was that on your partner’s mind when they were looking to kind of recreate a version of this drink in that syrup?
N: Certainly. And I think that it’s one of the things that makes it an iconic drink and that is, I wouldn’t want to speculate, but you can look at so many of the famous drinks in the world and they are in the red and pink spectrum. It’s what it just seems to be what humans are drawn to. And so I think that what we found is that when we used to do just a passion fruit Hurricane, that people were less excited about that than they were when you did the hibiscus or the strawberry fassionola syrup. And I think that the red color is a very important part of that.
T: And is there any way, anywhere along the line where folks are maybe just using grenadine or was there maybe a conscious decision there not to use grenadine because it feels like that might be something that maybe flavor-wise, if you’re adding other tropical flavors too, but also coloring, it really hits the nail on the head?
N: Traditionally, if people tried to knock off the Hurricane, that’s how they would do it. They would make some sort of Rum Sour and they would put grenadine in it.
T: Grenadine in it and it looks like a Hurricane. Interesting one — this one too — that it’s not the first, but it’s among the very few that has a glass named after it specifically.
N: Yeah, I actually don’t know the history of the glass, which is interesting. Now you make me want to go dig into the history of the glass.
T: I wonder if it’s a chicken and the egg situation that surely the glass was around but it became synonymous with it or did they… I don’t know.
N: They sell the glass, right? And it is called a Hurricane glass. You would have to believe that the glass was manufactured by Pat O’Brien’s. If I were going to formulate a theory, I wouldn’t feel comfortable commenting on the history because I don’t know it.
T: Here’s another one, just to put you on the spot — the name. Do we feel like this is, again, it’s something that is just evocative, which tends to work well? It’s definitely nowhere near as kind of gauche as the Hand Grenade and the vessel that that gets served in as well. Or is it also to do with climate conditions that are also prominent in New Orleans?
N: Well, first of all, I think the Hand Grenade was a reaction to the Hurricane. And so I think the Hand Grenade wanted to-
T: Take it to the next level?
N: Take it 10 levels higher. But I do think that the Hurricane, it’s just on people’s psyche in New Orleans. It’s the kind of event that we deal with. And I told a few people this lately as I’ve been really thinking about New Orleans again as we’re talking about the book is that New Orleans is a resilient city and we can get into whether that’s good or bad and the reasons why. But what we also know is that tomorrow isn’t promised because of that. And that’s part of the reason why we revel. And I think that the Hurricane, it’s the thing that always threatens to wipe us off the map. And so it really was a great name for a drink because it really speaks to that.
T: Yeah. It’s like you say, it’s omnipresent. I imagine just living there. Another thing you mentioned earlier that I find so interesting about this drink is this idea that even in New Orleans, people hadn’t set about trying to create a higher-quality version of this drink, especially over the last 20 years. This seems like, I don’t want to say low-hanging fruit, but an ideal candidate because bartenders are curious folks. And as soon as you have something that’s iconic but not done very well or not done in the mode of what you’re doing in this current cocktail movement, you’d imagine so many people are, yeah, we’re going to do this, but this is a proper one. It’s interesting, it took so long.
N: And that’s not to say that people didn’t attempt it over time, but I think that it was so far gone that people were like, “Why would you make a Hurricane? I don’t want to drink that.” And it’s not to say that people around the country and around New Orleans haven’t taken a swing at it because I think that people have, but I think that as people have started to understand fassionola a little bit more, I think that was really the key. And I just think that every now and then, just the timing has to be right. I can tell you, it’s been one of our top sellers at Cane & Table. We call it the Hurricane & Table. We don’t want to get in trouble. And it’s definitely a popular drink. I’ve had some rough nights at Pat O’Brien’s, I’ve had a few Hurricanes, I’ve ended up in the black and white picture with a group of people and I have also regretted it the next day. And I think that the thing that I’m most proud of, that Kirk was able to make something that you can have, it tastes great and you don’t regret it the next day unless you have multiples.
T: And you touched upon this earlier too; at its soul, is this a tiki drink? We’re going to get into rums, but the argument is you would use at least two if you’re doing this properly. You have a proprietary syrup that’s tropical and interesting vessel for serving it and it feels like certainly a good candidate for a tiki drink.
N: Yeah, I do think, if it’s not a hundred percent a tiki or a tropical drink, then it comes from that same mentality during the beginning of tiki where it’s about it… Maybe it’s a little less transporting and it has more of a sense of place maybe than some of the other traditional tiki and tropical drinks. But I do think that this idea of more is more is definitely there in the drink.
T: And you look at siblings or cousins or whatever, if we’re talking about the tiki realm here, just look at the Mai Tai drink that’s received a lot of abuse over the years. And I don’t mean by drinkers — them too — but the people that are making them. Really, the $1 Mai Tai at Applebee’s is something I think about very often. Just how was that possible? What was going into that drink?
N: I would imagine that you would deem it undrinkable.
T: But I don’t think we’re getting too far away from probably grain spirit and powdered something else. You know what I mean? It’s very much of that mold.
N: Yeah. What’s really interesting about drinks and where we were coming from before, the craft cocktail movement. And it’s very similar to the slow food movement. It really grew out of that. And there was a lot of science and food, convenience and food and that went into drinks. You can’t blame Pat O’Briens for doing what was certainly commonplace during that time. And you can’t blame New Orlean’s Daiquiri shops for doing citric acid and corn syrup and grain alcohol. That’s how they made money and they did it really well for a long time and people drank it and people enjoyed it. But I also think that people didn’t know that there were better things. And it’s been our job over the past two decades, 15-plus years to go through and to show people why they should drink better.
T: And also, people continue to enjoy those things very much. You only need to take a quick trip down Bourbon Street or whatever to see people are still reveling in them. But for those that do care, probably the audience of this show, folks like ourselves here, there are new avenues for exploration and things like that, ways that we can improve upon these drinks. For the Hurricane specifically, how much of a challenge is it to almost reconstruct this recipe when you might not have any kind of reference to what the original tastes like? Or if you’ve never tasted one before; yourselves, your team, what does that look like? What’s the starting point? Is it just that color?
N: Well, I wouldn’t want to speak on behalf of Kirk for that, but I can tell you how we approach a lot of different things. And I think this really, you could apply this to any historical drink; we think we know, but we don’t really know what a spirit was at the time. We don’t know if the versions that we taste now are true versions. If you get a vintage bottle, how oxidized is it? How true is it? How much has it changed in the bottle? And history is not the most reliable in the world of drinks. We’re lucky that we have some really intelligent and thorough historians that keep their eye on drinks. I feel very fortunate that we’re in an industry that actually does that. And I think we’ve got a lot of people, some of them who work at VinePair and some of them who work for other outlets and authors that are really going back and they’re diving through text. But there’s also some stuff where people didn’t write the recipes down. And so part of it’s imagination and I think that that’s what really attracts me to historical cocktails is that you really, in some ways, have to try and connect the dots. You may not connect them correctly, but it’s a logical and creative process at the same time. And that to me, it’s kind of the magic of going through and making historic drinks.
T: I would imagine as well that some of that, the final product, the final spec, part of that must come down to, does this also fit for us as a bar, right?
N: Correct.
T: I think back to our conversation that we had about the Sazerac and even down to the number of drops of bitters that you’re using in that. I think about that a lot. And ultimately, yeah, you’re trying to create something or recreate something I’d imagine that’s historically accurate.
N: Correct.
T: But it fits what you’re doing today.
N: Well, and there are modern philosophies and to say that you don’t run it through a modern lens would be disingenuous. You bring biases, you bring what you bring when you’re working on something. You bring everything that in this modern era with you, good and bad. To me, I think it’s a really fun process. It’s a lot a chef would do too, is that if you make a dish and it’s not delicious, then why would you put it on the menu? Right?
T: Just because it existed in history or something.
N: Yeah, exactly. People talk a lot about the Blood and Sand, right? The Blood and Sand, if you follow the historic recipe, is a tough-
T: It’s a tough sell. Tough on the palate.
N: And so modern bartenders try and make it taste good and as they should because in the end our job is to make things for people that they want to drink. I would always tell people when I was behind the bar, if I made them a drink that was off menu, I would say, you have a money back guarantee here. If you don’t like this drink, give it back to me. I will pour it down the sink and we will start over. Because the reality is that the fastest way to go out of business in the bar business is to give people drinks they don’t want to drink, right? And also I would also tell people, I’d say, it’s impossible to hurt my feelings. And so let’s just get that out there, I only want you to drink things that you like because if you drink things that you like, you are going to come back and drink more things that you like here.
T: That’s wonderful. And I think that also definitely makes people feel more comfortable. And if they feel more comfortable, maybe more open minded, maybe they might have been a little bit worried about it before because they’re like, okay, someone’s making something for me here, I have to like it. But in that scenario you feel, yeah, you like you have-
N: You’ve got to get out ahead of it and say, “Look, you’re not going to offend me.” There’s no way, I’m a bartender, I’m dead inside.
T: There’s nothing you can say that I probably haven’t already heard, right? Here’s another one for you that’s a slight detour, but I think it’s also very relevant for this conversation. It’s actually another piece that Robert wrote for VinePair fairly recently about the Ramos Gin Fizz. And I bring this up because it’s another iconic cocktail of your city, but speaks to that conversation of modern-day techniques and what’s available to us because — and I’m not asking you to call out anyone either way here — but the piece that Robert wrote was bartenders embracing, I’m going to say technology. We’re talking about blenders and things here. Blenders to make that drink easier to make. And ideally for them, up to the standards of what they would expect for the drink, they clearly think that it reaches it, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. How do you feel about that? Because the preparation of that iconic cocktail is part of its allure, it’s part of the appeal, but on the other hand, one can bring five of those. If someone orders one and the rest of the people see them like, oh wait, I’m having that, and then suddenly you’re in the weeds. So how do you feel about that through this lens?
N: Well, I think it’s pretty clear in this business. I used to work for a company that used to say wine sales are contagious. It’s like if one person sees a bottle of wine on a table, then another bottle of wine will go out, it sets the intention for the room. The Ramos Gin Fizz is just one of those drinks, one person orders one, everyone orders it. So we own or run bars that do both. And I believe in both ways. So I don’t think that one way is better or worse. Well actually, to be honest, I do think that the blender is a more effective way to make a Ramos Gin Fizz. And I also think that bartenders like making them more in blenders. And to be clear, this is not a modern technique; bartenders in New Orleans have been making Ramoses in blenders for years. I think what’s nice now is I think people are really thinking about order of operation and how to use the blender in a more intentional way. But I like them both ways, I really do, and I think that they’re slightly different experiences and I think that there’s some bars where you don’t want to hear a blender. I don’t like the sound of a blender, whether it’s in a soundproof cover or not. And so for that, I don’t like that. But I also understand if you’re going to put a Ramos Gin Fizz on your menu, it would be impossible — maybe not impossible — but it would be very difficult to do it without having a blender because you just wouldn’t be able to hold on. Either that or you do like what we do in D.C., which is you use the finest ingredients you can possibly find so you can charge an appropriate amount of money for it. We just know if we were making Ramos Gin Fizzes all night by hand, everything else would suffer, the restaurant would go down. And so you’ve got to be very intentional about how you use that cocktail and how you make that cocktail.
T: Sounds like it’s also judging the space. Again, if you have a small, very intimate cocktail bar, maybe you want to call it speakeasy, whatever, with a small space, maybe you can afford to do it then because there’s fewer covers. And also B) you can’t have that blender running in that space. It’s just going to kill the vibe of the room.
N: So we do it at Peychaud’s, which is a pretty small room, but most of our seating is outdoors.
T: There you go.
N: So it makes sense to run it in that room. But to be honest, if it was a cold night, which we don’t have that many of in New Orleans and the room was full, it would kind of suck to run the blender.
T: Yeah. You might want to rethink it then or go with the flow, see what’s going on. Speaking of speakeasies there — don’t want to say that three times real fast — but speaking of speakeasies there, another little fun fact I picked up from your book there — I believe that you were saying in there, correct me if I’m wrong — but Pat O’Brien might have been running a speakeasy during Prohibition and were you not… You’ve seen that space, you were once potentially offered that space?
N: So I was told to go take a look at it and it’s a beautiful building and I think it’s pretty clear that he was a bar operator during Prohibition and I think he was just an enterprising gentleman. And yeah, I think you see that he was a pretty solid business person because he built a bar that’s really lasted well beyond his lifetime and it’s an iconic space and it’s a fun place to go to. I don’t go often, but when I do I’m pretty excited to go there. And you see its roots, right? And you see that they were doing all sorts of cocktails for years and years and years and it’s just interesting to see the life of a bar over a few generations.
T: Yeah, that’s wonderful. I feel like the book is kind of filled with those interesting little nuggets. So again, I’m just saying folks, seek one out, seek a copy out for yourselves there.
N: If you love New Orleans drinks and New Orleans history and also New Orleans food, we’ve got a bunch of recipes from a bunch of my friends who are chefs in town and it really is designed to really… If you crack that book and you don’t want to go take a trip to New Orleans, then we haven’t done our job correctly.
T: No, I can definitely attest to that. Coming back to the Hurricane, though, specifically here. We talked about reverse engineering it or whatnot, but when it comes to this, the “Cocktail College” version as I like to call it, or the version that we’re taking seriously, even if maybe historically the drink hasn’t always been the ideal scenario, the Hurricane, what are you looking for profile-wise from the drink beyond balance? What are you hoping for from that experience?
N: Well, I think that you want it to be fruity without being sweet. And I think that’s the real key is that it’s got to have… I think you need a really nice level of acid. And I don’t get particularly — and I know Kirk doesn’t either in the Peychaud’s team, either — we don’t get particularly dogmatic about lemon or lime. And I think that the really fun thing to do is to think about your rum blend. But I think that we said besides balance, but really it does come back to balance and I think that’s true in every cocktail. And we have a responsibility to make sure that the drink feels not too sweet, not too sour, not too boozy, not too dilute. You’ve got to really thread that needle and that’s what you would do for any cocktail. But it’s really just being as intentional about making a quality cocktail that just happens to be a Hurricane.
The Ingredients in Neal Bodenheimer’s Hurricane
T: Fantastic. And let’s get into those ingredients now especially, and let’s start with that rum blend, something you said that’s fun there. So what is the argument in favor of creating a blend for this drink rather than just going one specific style of rum beyond this being sort of quasi-tiki as we mentioned, and that being something that’s very common there. What are you thinking about there?
N: So I think that you just want to select appropriately and generally, you want to pair a spirit with the flavors. But at the same time what you’re looking for is you’re looking for depth. And so you might want that base to be something pretty neutral and then you might want to put some higher rum in there to make sure that it’s got some dimension and some rum flavor. You don’t want it to just be totally flat and neutral. You might as well be using grain alcohol sometimes. And so it just depends on the story that you’re trying to tell with the drink. Like the one at Peychaud’s, we use a local fresh sugar cane rum and it’s wonderful and it really goes well with the strawberry in that. And then at Cane & Table, we use Puerto Rican rum and then we also use Jamaican rum. And so we are just trying to get to a different place.
T: And so it sounds like here, building upon what you said there, the kind of base spirit or the base of this blend, you’re maybe looking for the alcohol, like you said, maybe a more neutral profile. So maybe kind of an unaged molasses-style rum. Is that generally the thinking there? And probably also the one that’s going to help keep your margins lower on the drink or higher. Keep your costs lower on this drink.
N: Yeah, I think we are in business to make money and we don’t talk about that a lot in the bar business. We probably should talk about that more. But if you don’t make money then eventually you don’t want to go to work. And so that’s one of the things that we always try and pay attention to in our drinks is that they have to be profitable but not at the sacrifice of quality. And so it is a balance and there are some very fine spirits in this world that would make a wonderful Hurricane and we would have to charge a fortune for it. And sometimes there’s a place… We do also have a reserve Hurricane at Cane & Table and it’s a blend of rare rum and that’s really fun, too.
T: And is that blend completely aged or is there some unaged in there as well?
N: It changes a little bit.
T: Okay. But, you’re saying it could-
N: Have to take a look and see what they’re doing right now.
T: So theoretically speaking, this is a drink you think that holds up to possibly only including aged rum or do you feel like you need something unaged just for the vibrancy there?
N: I think you could do aged rum, I think you’d have to be very specific about which aged rums you used. Because I think if you get to stuff that has added sugar, it would be really difficult. It would kind of muddy the flavors. But I do think that there is a place for aging, but I think you have to be a very light touch with it because if you don’t, you could start to get into a weird place.
T: But on the other hand, like you say, there is that opportunity to maybe use just a little bit, provide some depth.
N: Yeah, for sure. It’s also, as we talk about seasonal drinks. There are things that you want a Hurricane to be in the summer, and there may be if you wanted to make a Hurricane in the fall or in the winter, you might make some different choices. We’re lucky to have a pretty mild winter. It does get cold here and there and you would want maybe to pick a slightly different rumbling. But that’s really one of the funnest things that we get to deal with is thinking about what’s the weather, what do we think people want and making those decisions.
T: I’m going to pin you down to one recipe today as is customary for this show. So I’m assuming that one would be Kirk’s from the book there. So can you tell us what that final blend of rums is that you have in the Hurricane & Table?
N: Okay, so I believe that we use Don Q Cristal and we use Coruba. And so those are the two rums that we have used most recently. And then Kirk’s fassionola syrup.
T: Which we’re going to get into in a moment, but before we do, just plugging VinePair articles here today. Coruba. let’s talk about this for a second because this is one a good friend of mine, Aaron Goldfarb, wrote a piece about for VinePair as well. This is one Campari-owned rum that basically few people outside of the industry have ever heard of. I’ve never come across a bottle for sale ever and it almost certainly contains additives and whatnot, but people love it. Tell us about this ingredient.
N: Well, so it’s got a nice depth and complexity and it’s a way for us to add some flavor to the blend. I think that there are lots of different ways… In some ways, I hate to mention brands because I feel like there are a lot of different things that can work and sometimes we make a choice and then we’ll ride that for a little bit and then we’ll get tired and we’ll say, hey, we want to mix the blend up. So it’s just Coruba, the price is great, the flavor profile works and it makes it a really profitable drink for us.
T: And that’s a Jamaican rum.
N: It’s a Jamaican rum.
T: That’s right. I need to find myself a bottle of this and just try it on its own. But yeah, I know there’s many fans out there so I couldn’t let us pass that opportunity. Next one. I’m guessing probably the most important part about this drink: fassionola syrup. First of all, tell me about that name. So that’s existed as a product. Tell us about fassionola
N: So fassionola was the proprietary syrup that Pat O’Brien’s made, which was pretty common in tiki bars where people would have a secret syrup. And so this is no different. It’s hard to go back and say for sure what was in it. I think you have to make some logical leaps and it gets back to the other part. You also have to make something that’s delicious that you want to serve people. And so I think as Kirk was going, he saw that there were a few different recipes for it that he could find, a few different philosophies he really wanted to get into… He thought that it was pretty likely that it was tropical-inspired and so he wanted to make it a tropical syrup. And so with that, guava, passion, fruit hibiscus, but a pretty simple syrup. I can’t imagine that Pat O’s would’ve been… Given where they went with it, I can’t imagine that they were looking to make the most complex syrup in the world. But I also think that that’s the beauty of where we are now, is that we can interpret that syrup and we can take some creative liberty and license with it. And I think that you’ll start to see more people do that, I hope. And once again, I think that Cocktail & Sons makes a really good one, too. And so if you ever want to know what a version tastes like, you can buy that in a store, you don’t have to make it.
T: Yeah. I guess one guiding rule here, you mentioned this earlier and it stuck out to me, is fruity without being sweet.
N: Correct.
T: And I think that’s something that’s very acute, very intelligent you can do, whether a chef or a bartender is, trick the brain into thinking something as sweet by pronounced fruit character. And it actually isn’t because if it were a sweet then this thing would just be cloying or whatnot, right? I feel it’s a nice real balance to get there.
N: And that’s exactly right. And if you look at some of the traditional knockoffs of the Hurricane, if you were to go to other bars around New Orleans and you asked for a Hurricane, some people would make it for you and they would make it with grenadine like we talked about and it would be sweet. And this idea of balance is critical to everything that we do in this business. And if you don’t have a balanced final product, then people are not going to have that wow moment with it.
T: And all right, two questions following up on that. First one being, when it comes to making this syrup in-house, are you using frozen purees of the fruit? I know there’s very good bar-quality ones out there.
N: Yeah, so traditionally, we use — and we make the same syrup in Washington, D.C. at Dauphine’s — we use frozen passion fruit puree and then we use guava paste and then we use hibiscus. And it’s nice because the hibiscus-
T: The dried hibiscus?
N: Dried hibiscus. The hibiscus is a really critical component because what made this such an intelligent recipe by Kirk is that hibiscus has acidity. And so it really takes a very sweet tropical — you’ve got acidity from the passion fruit and then you’ve got a lot of sweet and kind of tropical notes from guava. And then you have that hibiscus that kind of adds acid, adds color and makes it sharper and leaner and more acidic.
T: Yeah. And we’re also quite literally adding a floral aspect here, which you just don’t get with fruit. Some fruit have, again, the perception of floral notes, but we’re adding that, which I think just gives a whole ‘nother layer to this drink or that syrup.
N: Yeah. And it also makes the color right.
T: Exactly.
N: And we talked about that earlier. You’ve got to steep it long enough. It can turn a little orange red, burnt orange if you don’t steep it long enough.
T: And are you having to add sugar to this as well, the final syrup?
N: Oh yeah, absolutely.
T: Are you in the school of measuring Brix, that kind of thing? Or are you more, you have your recipe and you tweak by weight, by volume?
N: So a few things. So we use a little Brix meter when we do frozen drinks. We don’t use it when we do syrups. We have in the past, but generally we go by volume. And the reason why is because we have a large catalog of drinks and I wish that we could go back and do them all by weight, but we would have hundreds of drinks that wouldn’t work and we would have to respect literally every drink. And so the idea is that, yeah, it would be really nice to do it by weight, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s something that would make a lot of sense for us.
T: If you were starting out again today from scratch, is that the way you would go going forward?
N: I think I would, yeah.
T: Yeah? Just makes things easier or make consistency or?
N: Yeah, it’s just more consistent and you’re always looking for ways to make sure that you’re taking a chaotic world and trying to bring order to it. And when you go by volume, it’s just a little more chaos. And when you go by weight, it’s more orderly. But the syrups are different, the balance is different. And so it’s just going to be a different product. And then when you see it in an old Milk and Honey specs, their specs are made for the ice. And you see it in people that use cold draft, their specs are different from people that use other drafts. You have these things that you work with and the way that you make drinks, the way that you make syrups, the ice you use, it all goes into how you make your drinks. And that’s why often a recipe from one bar won’t translate to another bar because the variables are different.
T: Oh, that’s so interesting. Yeah. So many things in there I hadn’t really considered before that with the ice, though. That’s fascinating. Second question that I had for you a little while before there, too, which was talking about recipe development and specs and things like that, we spoke about how it can get too sweet, but when it comes to developing something like this, at the end, do you sit down and drink a whole one? Because otherwise I feel like the balance can change across the drink and depending on how much you’ve had and also as ice melts.
N: Particularly for a crushed ice cocktail, it is important. And unfortunately, we can’t tell people at what speed to drink a drink, for better or for worse. There’s sometimes where we tell someone to slow down. But there are some things that you can affect and some things that you can’t. And so I do think it’s important. A lot of times what we’ll do is we’ll make a drink, we’ll try it in the very beginning and then we’ll let it sit and then you’ll go back and you’ll try it and then you’ll let it sit in the end. And particularly for a crushed ice drink, it’s pretty hard for it to be in really good shape in the end. It just doesn’t work like that. But in the middle, it should taste really good and near the end. There is a moment where the ice gives everything that it has and that drink will be over-diluted. Now, there are some drinks that can use that amount of water. I feel like there are things like in a punch, there’s never enough water to add to a punch. It feels like a drink that can always take more water. And then there’s some cocktails that the minute that they get more water, they’re ruined. And so I think it gets back to this idea of intentionality and you’ve got to be intentional about the cocktails that you’re making. And to say that you’re going to get it a hundred percent all the time, I don’t think that happens. But I do think that if you’re thoughtful and intentional, you can get a good experience most of the time.
T: Yeah, it definitely does seem like a drink like this, the Hurricane or anything served over crushed ice, when it’s coming straight out the tin, yeah, maybe it’s a bit more concentrated, maybe it’s a bit more amped up than you want it perfectly, but you know that you’re going to hit that sweet spot soon. It’s this evolution in glass.
N: And that’s definitely, you see a lot of times for crushed ice cocktails, maybe you’ll do a dry shake, maybe you do a whip shake just to try and get it aerated, but you know that the crushed ice is going to do its thing. And so you have to be aware of that and you have to make the drinks appropriately for that.
T: Next ingredient I have here — lime juice or lemon juice. So you said you guys are not too fussed about this in terms of — or that’s been the case over history, people have gone between the two.
N: I just think it’s internal for us is that, I think it’s likely it was originally a lemon juice cocktail. I think that’s pretty clear. But I also think that it works really well with lime juice.
T: It’s a rum drink.
N: Yeah, it does. I don’t think that’s the hill anybody needs to die on for this drink.
T: And also a lot of other fruit flavors and flavors going on right there. This is not like a Daiquiri or something where it’s really going to stand out which citrus you’re using.
N: Yeah, exactly. And it’s so funny because I feel like we’ve talked about two drinks that are so different and they’re so… Like a Sazerac, you have to be so precise and now here I am back on your podcast and I’m like, “Yeah, well, you could use lemon or lime or you could use this or that.” And it’s a more forgiving drink.
T: Yeah. I think that also speaks to the way that it’s served, though. Everything we’re just talking about there with crushed ice and whatnot. There’s infinitely more variables when you’re drinking that way.
N: Yeah, there’s just no place to hide with the Sazerac.
T: Yeah.
N: There’s like a lot of places to hide in a Hurricane.
T: Yeah. Well, for that very reason, the possibly grain spirit and dry packet powder mix endures.
N: It does endure. And I’m sure it’s exceedingly profitable.
T: Yeah. And it’s a passable drink to, at the very least, people enjoy very many of them.
N: There are visitors that come to New Orleans everyday that have Hurricanes. And I do believe it’s a rite of passage at O’Brien’s. This is not meant to be a dig at Pat O’Brien’s.
T: Not all.
N: They do it in a different way and they do it in a way that works really well for them.
T: And their accountants.
N: It’s just not what we do. And so because of that, it just seems like, I appreciate that they do that, it’s just not the way that we run our business.
T: And again, I’m trying to think of an anecdote here as well or a metaphor that doesn’t — because again, I do not want this to seem like we’re doing down on Pat O’Brien’s or whatever. I guess it’s Shake Shack versus one of Danny Meyer’s other restaurants and you look at the burger, what are they doing at Shake Shack and what are they doing at their other places and how are they serving it and how much are you paying for it? It’s the same thing there; one’s intended for mass consumption and the other is a little bit more-
N: A hundred percent. I think that’s exactly it, right? The decisions that you make when you’re serving a huge amount of people, they’re different from what you do when you’re not. And you have to make decisions like that. I’m going to say that I think that a lot of cocktails on draft just don’t taste as good as a la minute cocktails. There are some venues that really need cocktails on draft to thrive. They need that to handle the volume and that is the decision they have to make for their business. And I guarantee you that the businesses that do it are pretty happy that they do it.
T: Yeah. I’m just worried here now. I can hear the people saying now as well, how dare you compare Shack to a powdered mixed cocktail? I’m going to say it here though, folks, not a big fan of Shake Shack. Sorry Danny. I am not the biggest fan in the world of that. You know what, I’ll take a Five Guys any day.
N: I don’t discriminate. I like hamburgers in all shapes and sizes.
T: Me too.
N: And I would say that maybe a McDonald’s hamburger versus a Gramercy Tavern experience, it might even be a better comparison.
How to Make Neal Bodenheimer’s Hurricane
T: It might be one, yeah. I think you’re right there. Yeah. I’m just trying to be kind to the folks at Pat O’Brien’s, but we can’t please everyone. Anyway, all right, let’s talk about this now, preparation of the drink. Talk us through it here as if you’re making the version that we’ve been speaking about today from start to finish with measurements and whatnot.
N: So we generally — and it depends. At Dauphine’s we actually use Don Q as well in that, but then we use Appleton signature in it and it’s really nice as well.
T: I have a feeling that might be in the… Anyway.
N: Yeah, I think that’s the one that we — because initially at Cane & Table we used Appleton, and then we decided to change to Coruba. And I will say that we’ve gone into a frozen machine, we’ve gone out of a frozen machine with that drink. It’s done a lot of different things for us, and we do change it based on what we’re doing. So generally we do one and a half of the more neutral rum, the Puerto Rican style, and then we do about a half-ounce of the Jamaican rum.
T: And that will have seen some age.
N: Yes. And then it’s really a two, three-quarter, three-quarter sour.
T: Okay.
N: Three-quarter lime or lemon, depending on which one we want to do. And then three-quarter fassionola. And so it’s a really easy pickup for bartenders because it’s a three-bottle pickup. And so that makes it really fun for us. So personally, I like to do a little whip shake on it, get it a little cold.
T: So you’re thinking what, one or two?
N: One or two cubes, and then just give it a real quick shake and then just get it aerated and then I’ll go onto crushed ice from there.
T: Perfect. And I would imagine chilled Hurricane glass, if you have the space for it-
N: If you have the space for it. The Hurricane glass is not the easiest glass to fit into the freezer. But yes, in a perfect world, you would have that. At Cane & Table, it is a 200-plus-year-old building with very limited refrigeration.
T: You do not have a Hurricane glass chiller.
N: No.
T: Garnish?
N: Garnish. And this is where you can take a little creative license, but we do believe that the blown out umbrella, the blown out parasol is the move. And so you take your parasol and you flip it open, and then you kind of take it and you move it up.
T: Fantastic.
N: Yeah. And that to me is the non-negotiable. We use dried oranges sometimes, but sometimes we just use the little paper parasol.
T: I love it. I love that. It speaks to the drink so perfectly there. Any final thoughts on the Hurricane today that we haven’t covered?
N: Well, yeah, I think that the Hurricane is supposed to be fun. And I think that it’s not a drink that should be obsessed over in the most serious way. I think that the syrup, if you really wanted to get nerdy, I think the two places where you’d get nerdier on, the syrup, maybe on the rum blend. You definitely do a lot more customization there. But I just think that if I could kind of leave you with one thought on the Hurricane, it’s like, just make it balanced. Just make it into a drink that you want to drink that tastes good. And that’s the most important part. I was telling someone this the other day. There’s a saying that is, I didn’t ask how to build a watch, I asked what time it was. And very often, we make things that are overly complex when people just want a drink that just tastes great. And so if you focus on making drinks taste great, that’s really half the battle. More than half the battle.
T: Yeah. A hundred percent. Again, you said it earlier, you can’t insult me as a bartender, but most people might not come into your bar expecting to hear about everything that went into that drink or the preparation or whatever. They’re just looking to have a refreshing drink, maybe get a little buzz. That’s it.
N: Yeah. I think they want to drink delicious things and they want warm hospitality in a great space. I know that sounds simple and it’s a Sisyphean task, but that’s what we do and that’s what we have to do. And ultimately, we can get into the thousand pieces that go into trying to accomplish that, but you can’t get into the weeds on it so much that you’re not doing the non-negotiables in our business.
T: Yeah. Not everyone wants to see him or hear how the sausage is made. They just want a couple of links off the grill.
N: Agreed. Well, luckily your listeners want to hear how the sausage is made.
T: Definitely, Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And like you said there, too, I think it is great that we are covering this drink today because it is a polar opposite to the Sazerac that we covered all that time ago.
N: I know. And as persnickety as I am about the Sazerac, I’m, I don’t know, you do this, you do that.
T: It speaks to the lighthearted nature of the Hurricane.
N: A hundred percent.
Getting to Know Neal Bodenheimer
T: All right, let’s do it. Let’s roll out the second set of questions here. The set that we use, the set we share with our returning guests. How are you feeling? Are we ready for this?
N: Oh, I’m going to try.
T: Question number one. Which spirits category are you most excited about currently from a personal or professional standpoint?
N: So there are many, but I find myself consistently drawn to eaux de vie. And I just think that they are often singular experiences and spirits. And I just think that they vary from one producer to the next. And I think it’s an art form. And so I am very excited about eaux de vie all the time.
T: I’m so there with you on that one. That’s the one I like to hear. And sadly, probably never going to happen in the big way that tequila or even mezcal that we see these days, but-
N: I don’t think it could happen in that way.
T: Yeah, so true. But you know what, I will take some German eaux de vie — no, Austrian, Reisetbauer.
N: Yeah. That stuff’s delicious.
T: Stuff’s amazing. I saw it. I was in the Astor Wine & Spirits the other day and had to control myself there and not buy another bottle because it ain’t cheap either but it’s definitely worth it.
N: And it costs a lot of money to make those. And it really is a labor of love. And if you don’t get the right growing season, you don’t get eaux de vie.
T: Right. Yeah. This is a spirit, but you might as well. It’s like a wine, the stakes are high.
N: Well, and I think it’s going to be interesting to see what happens to eaux de vie, very much like you see in the wine world. I think what you’re seeing in the wine world is going to spill into the brandy world. And so I think global warming is going to change a whole lot about how we drink brandy and eaux de vie.
T: Yeah.
N: It’s a theory, but I think it’s likely.
T: Yeah, I think the parallels are there, definitely between wine and that. So enjoy it now, folks. If nothing else you take away from today’s episode, go out there, drink more eaux de vie, especially now.
N: Amen.
T: Yeah. Question number two, what was the last drink you had that wowed you? Could be a cocktail, could be a new spirit, could be an RTD?
N: It’s a really tough question and I really can’t remember. In some ways, I feel like there are things that I try all the time that I think are wonderful and well made. And I don’t know if it’s a function of age or experience, but it is very difficult for me to be, “Wow.” And I’m always, that’s good, right? And I can appreciate something for being good. But there are very few moments where I’m like, “Wow, you just blew my mind.”
T: I think that speaks volumes. I think that speaks volumes to what it’s like to be in the industry for a decent amount of time, to not give you enough credit there. But to have so much experience. Yeah, it’s true. And oftentimes the ones that might be most noticeable are because they’re different and different doesn’t necessarily equate to quality.
N: That’s a hundred percent true. There’s nothing jaded about what I’m saying. I think there are a lot of great things to drink in the world. There is incredible wine, new techniques on spirits, on fermentation. I just think I’m very excited about a lot of things in the world of spirits. But I think it is something that happens with age where I don’t get overly excited about anything and I try to keep it pretty even. And I can say, “Wow, that’s great,” but I’m not like, “Oh my God, I got to have more of this and more and more.” Yeah, they’re very few experiences like that, which is probably a good thing.
T: Well, I think you also run the risk at some point of maybe pigeonholing yourself in a way, or opening that bar that’s singularly focused, which there’s positives, but there’s also disadvantages to that. Yeah.
N: Yeah. I just think people today, we see higher and higher-quality cocktails coming out. We see a lot of really high-quality beverages and it would be hard to choose the tippity top, but I don’t know, I still can’t think of that one that broke my brain recently.
T: Still time. Still time today.
N: It’s also probably that I’m just not remembering it, too.
T: I think that’s a good answer. Question number three, what’s one book you would recommend that every alcohol and cocktail enthusiast should own a copy of? I’m just going to say it already. We’ve already mentioned one. Your book today. Again, folks, check that one out. So apart from that, it can be a recipe book, but doesn’t have to, what’s one or maybe a couple?
N: When we were discussing this earlier, I was thinking a lot about it and there’s a wealth of cocktail knowledge in books now. And the modern era has so many, and there are ones that are released every day that really are better and better and better. But for me, I can think of three books that made a huge impact on me. And so I think if I’m kind of running this through the lens of, if I were looking to really turn on the light for cocktails, I think Dale Degroff’s book was really important for me. And when I was a young bartender, I used to tote it around and read it and it really made an impact on me. And then obviously, Wondrich’s “Imbibe” really made a huge impact on me as well. And then I used to carry around “The Savoy Cocktail Book” to work sometimes, and I would try and make these drinks that just didn’t seem to work. And we just talked about this with the Hurricane. I think that the process that I learned by going through “The Savoy Cocktail Book” was that, number one, you have to make delicious drinks because some of those drinks, if you make them to spec, are not delicious. You have to understand that what you’re using today isn’t what people were using. So I just think it’s a cerebral exercise in making classic cocktails, historic cocktails, and understanding that you’ve got to wiggle sometimes to make great drinks. You’ve got to stay true to what they are. But in the end, you’ve got to make those decisions in the present of what’s going to make a great drink, but it’s still true to the historic drink.
T: And by the time of “The Savoy Cocktail Book,” do we even have numbers for measurements. I know for example, even Jerry Thomas, you look at his book and we’re talking wine glasses, right? What the hell’s a wine glass… and it is parts. And I’ve gone down those rabbit holes. But all of which is to say that, yeah, you have to interpret it and probably like you say there, tweak for modern ingredients and technique.
N: You do. And so I think that there’s laying a foundation and I think that there is understanding how to make drinks, understanding what’s a good drink, what’s not good drink. So I think that “The Savoy Cocktail Book” is great because you have this gap that you have to close to make great cocktails out of it.
T: I like “The Savoy” as well, very economical when it comes to providing context or anything other than basically ingredients and measurements. It’s very succinct when it comes to directions.
N: Yeah, there’s not a lot. And so you’ve got to make the leap and just think if you’re making drinks, I think it’s a great way to go through that exercise.
T: Wonderful. Question number four. If you could appear in one movie scene where alcohol plays a prominent role, which one would it be and who would you like to play?
N: “The Shining.” The Bartender from “The Shining.” If I didn’t actually have to be the bartender, if I could be the actor that played the bartender, I wouldn’t want to be condemned to a lifetime of being an evil spirit. But I just love that scene and I love the classic bartender. To me, it’s probably one of the most iconic bartender roles in a movie.
T: Lloyd.
N: Lloyd.
T: What a man. That very much introduced me to the phrase, hair of the dog that bit me. What’s the other one? Interesting as well, too, that he asked for a bourbon and he served Jack Daniel’s.
N: Yeah.
T: Kubrick just getting ahead of that argument there. Kubrick predicted it.
N: Yeah. I’m sure he was just looking forward.
T: Yeah. He knew it. I tell you what, though, if you want a movie where people very much geek out about symbolism and overthink things, there’s a couple of documentaries about “The Shining,” and it’s an interesting one, Stephen King hated it.
N: Did he?
T: It’s his least favorite adaptation of all time.
N: Huh?
T: Yep. He thought it was terrible.
N: But then everybody else loved it.
T: Everyone else thought it was a masterpiece. All right. Final question for the show today. Which modern classic cocktail do you think is deserving of more recognition than it gets?
N: This is another really difficult one because there are so many great drinks that are out there. And I think that when a drink is so well received that no one knows who made the drink, it is generally a good example of a drink that we need to be talking about. I would say that Phil Ward’s Oaxacan Old-Fashioned is certainly in there. It’s everywhere. It is truly that drink that you see an Oaxacan or an agave and it really changed the way that people thought about using agave spirits. And I just think it’s a drink that will stand the test of time. It’s going to.
T: I hope the listeners forgive me for this one because I can’t remember whether I’ve spoken about this on the show before or not. But when it comes to looking at that drink, is that the first time, at least in your knowledge, that a bartender took the Old-Fashioned template and said, I’m going to use that template, but introduce a new spirit here, but also use the fact that at that time, the Old-Fashioned was the thing. It was “Mad Men,” it was the craft cocktail movement. It was that thing. So just pegging yourself to something everyone knows, but saying, Here’s a new spirit you should try. Had people done that before? Had people used the Old-Fashioned as a vehicle like that?
N: I wouldn’t want to comment on that, but I do think that it was pretty impressive, right? I think you saw people making Old Fashioned variations with things that really were close to whiskey and rye. Or you’d see people making Rum Old Fashioneds, see people making split base. But I think that when Phil took it and did what he did and used an unaged mescal in it, I think it really made people think about that format and the fact that it was maybe even more adaptable than we had even realized. And so I just think it’s now you see Old Fashioned variations of a thousand different spirits and it’s great. But I also think back a little bit to the improved genever and fancy genever and if you were using a genever that didn’t have a lot of age, then it kind of had a similar kind of feel to that drink. But I think what made Phil’s new classic just seem like it had been there for forever, is that it just tastes great. And it’s flexible, right? He called for specific bitters, but you can make it without those bitters and it still tastes great. There are people that make it with syrup. There are people that make it with agave nectar. It’s a good enough spec that when someone makes a choice that isn’t a hundred percent on spec, it still executes well. And I think that’s a sign of a classic. It’s got to be able to fit into multiple bars.
T: Yeah. It’s so interesting because when you’re talking about that, I’m thinking of another drink here that’s somewhat similar, which is the White Negroni, but arguably that’s much more rigid. To my mind, the White Negroni is a celebration of Suze, much like the Negroni is a celebration of Campari and everything else is kind of like you pick up what you have, whereas this is a different story.
N: It is. And I think that’s one of the reasons why the Old Fashioned has done so well is it is a pretty flexible format? And it’s interesting and particularly running it through the lens of the Hurricane, if you run it through the lens of the Hurricane, you realize that it’s a pretty simple format as well, which makes it pretty forgiving. And so as people take that drink into their bar, they can play around with it and it can still be a Hurricane and they can still say that they’re serving a Hurricane and much like Oaxaca Old Fashioned could become an Agave Old Fashioned or could become an eaux de vie Old Fashioned or whatever you want to do.
T: Neal, pro that you are there, bringing us back to the top, bringing us back to the topic as well, the Hurricane. Thanks so much for joining us here in the studio today. It’s been a blast.
N: Yeah, I’m really thrilled to be here. And it’s great to be back in New York and see it starting to thrive again.
T: I see Hurricanes in our very near future.
N: Yeah, we’ve got to figure that out ASAP. There’ll definitely be some Hurricane’s tonight at Porchlight.
T: Yeah, shout out some of our other friends there, Nick Bennett, among others, I’m sure that’ll be there. The book launch, looking forward to it. Neal, thanks again, man.
N: Tim, thank you so much for having me.
T: Cheers.
Okay, that was a lot of info, but here’s the good news. Every single episode of VinePair’s Cocktail College is also published on VinePair.com as a transcript. So you can check it out there all over again.
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Now, for the credits. “Cocktail College” is recorded and produced in New York City by myself and Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director and all-around podcast guru. Of course, I want to give a huge shout-out to everyone on the VinePair team. Too many awesome people to mention. They know who they are. I want to give some credit here to Danielle Grinberg, art director at VinePair, for designing the awesome show logo. And listen to that music. That’s a Darbi Cicci original. Finally, thank you, listener, for making it this far and for giving this whole thing a purpose. Until next time.
