If there’s one city that needs a good drink …

People said that irony

was dead after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the widespread panic and damage imposed by Hurricane Rita, some may have wondered if they could ever again order a certain cocktail indigenous to New Orleans.

Disasters impose collateral cultural damage that, while insignificant compared to the loss of life or livelihood, can speak volumes about the social impact of calamity.

It would be a sad postscript to Katrina if Mardi Gras was cancelled or if a city in desperate need of a strong drink felt unable to order one of its own creation.

The Hurricane, a drink invented after the repeal of prohibition, was created when whisky was in short supply in New Orleans but rum was easy to come by. The French Quarter establishment named for the Hurricane’s inventor, Pat O’Brien, has been closed since Katrina, but the drink remains on the menu at Toronto’s Southern Accent, a popular Cajun restaurant where $1 from each entree is currently being donated to Louisiana shelters aiding the hurricane’s victims.

And, as my Mardi Gras-beadwearing waiter informed me, the cocktail has actually grown more popular since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast last month.

“I don’t think people are conscious of it,” he said, handing me a cocktail glass the size of my torso, “ but I noticed because I know how many we usually serve.”

Hearing the word “hurricane” ad nauseam for weeks has apparently created a subconscious desire for 10 oz of dark and light rum mixed with juice and grenadine. One wonders if Home Depot employees feel a compulsive need to drink screwdrivers every night.

Most people who order Southern Accent’s Hurricane recognize the potential insensitivity of their request about halfway through their drink, my waiter informed me, and ask him if it is “too soon” to be enjoying the cocktail.

But the drink could be seen as

a liquid tribute to the Big

Easy: a bold, colourful, intoxicating experience that

will leave you happy, spinning and with a strange desire to flash your chest to strangers.

Halfway through my

own Hurricane, I asked the

waiter exactly how much

booze I was consuming,

my words already beginning to slur into an alcoholic patois.

“It’s devastating, huh?” he replied with a wink. “No pun intended.”

THE HURRICANE

2 oz light rum

2 oz dark rum

2 oz passion fruit juice

1 oz orange juice

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

1 tbsp syrup

1 tbsp grenadine

Garnish: orange slice and cherry Siri Agrell, National Post