ENDANGERED COCKTAIL OF THE MONTH-THE BARRACUDA
By Pink Lady
August is upon us, and after a summer of record-breaking temperatures, it’s hard to imagine a cooler month lies ahead. The obvious solution is to cool off with a beverage, and with National Prosecco Day (August 13th) and National Rum Day (August 16th) on the horizon, I see icy cocktails in my future.
Do you love tropical cocktails but lack the enthusiasm to mix up a nine ingredient Tiki-style drink in this weather? Would you rather be beating the heat on the Italian coastline than in front of your window unit air conditioner? I can’t help with a plane ticket, but I can help get you there mentally with a 1960s-era drink recipe that deploys some key Italian ingredients in a tropical style. It’s time to put on some Italian bossa nova, break out the Galliano, and mix up a Barracuda.
Italian bartender Benito Cuppari created The Barracuda in the late 1950s while working aboard the Crisoforo Colombo cruise ship on the Genoa — New York City route. He perfected the drink a few years later at Bar Lido on the Michaelangelo, a luxury transatlantic ocean liner known for providing five-star service aboard a veritable floating city as it transversed the Atlantic. Cuppari manned one of the seven on board bars and named the drink after the famous Barracuda nightclub in Portofino, which was managed by a friend.
The Barracuda’s showy serving vessel was a hollowed-out pineapple, which naturally elevated the drink to must-have status. Ever the excellent marketers, the Galliano brand would eventually produce a ceramic version of the pineapple vessel, a promotional piece bearing the recipe. Cuppari’s drink would become an internationally recognized, award-winning cocktail, and earn praise, and a spot on the drink menu, from Trader Vic himself.
Cheers to rum, Prosecco, and Benito Cuppari’s legendary Barracuda!
BARRACUDA
1/2 ounce ounce of gold rum
1/2 ounce ounce of Galliano liqueur
1/2 ounce ounce of pineapple juice
1/4 ounce of lime juice
1/4 ounce of simple syrup
Prosecco
SHAKE all ingredients except Prosecco with ice. STRAIN into a chilled vintage coupe, or optional ceramic pineapple. TOP with Prosecco.
Cin-cin!
