Hurricanes
Luis Ayala holding a snifter of rum
The word “hurricane” as a noun refers to tropical cyclones of particularly high intensity (as defined by the Beaufort Scale Table), accompanied by heavy rains, fast winds and oftentimes thunder. The word is a partially-deformed adoption of the Spanish huracán (as first used by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, in “Historia General y Natural de las Indias” in 1547) which was derived from Arawakan (West Indies).
As I write these lines, hurricane Harvey is dropping its water payload all around us in Coastal and Central Texas. I can’t help but imagine what our predecessors’ lives were like, before the days of government evacuations, e-mail storm notifications and advanced satellite weather modeling.
Being caught off-guard could have been –and still can be- life threatening. The same water that is needed for crops to grow can also flood roads and can be responsible for mudslides and other catastrophes, highlighting the irony of human’s need and quest for water.
Water is king in the rum industry: sugarcane can’t prosper without it and steam-based distillation would be more expensive and complex if it had to rely on other fluids. Water (rain season) also determines when nature is ready to allow for harvesting equipment and personnel to enter the cane fields. It is only fitting then, that rum mixology would honor hurricanes, the ultimate water givers, with a namesake cocktail.
While Harvey coerces the trees around our house do “the wave,” I think it is fitting that I head to the bar to fix myself a hurricane, so I may endure the storm, repeating in my head what countless generations before me are certain to have said to themselves in similar times: “this too, shall pass.”
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher