A damn the weather (or damn-the-weather) is a

Prohibition Era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacturing, manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption ...

cocktail A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink. Most commonly, cocktails are either a combination of spirits, or one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients such as tonic water, fruit juice, flavored syrup, or cream. Cocktails vary widely across ...

made with

Gin Gin () is a distilled alcoholic drink that derives its flavour from juniper berries (''Juniperus communis''). Gin originated as a medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe, particularly in southern Italy, Flanders and the Ne ...

sweet vermouth Vermouth (, ) is an aromatized fortified wine, flavoured with various botanicals (roots, barks, flowers, seeds, herbs, and spices) and sometimes colored. The modern versions of the beverage were first produced in the mid- to late 18th cent ...

orange juice Orange juice is a liquid extract of the orange (fruit), orange tree fruit, produced by squeezing or reaming oranges. It comes in several different varieties, including blood orange, navel oranges, valencia orange, clementine, and tangerine. A ...

, and a sweetener (either

Triple Sec Triple sec is an orange-flavoured liqueur that originated in France. It usually contains 20–40% alcohol by volume. Triple sec is rarely consumed neat, but is used in preparing many mixed drinks such as margaritas, cosmopolitans, sidecars, Long ...

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

). It is served shaken and chilled, often with a slice of

orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

or other citrus fruit.

History

Like many prohibition-era cocktails, the damn the weather was conceived as a way to hide the scent and flavor of poor quality homemade spirits, in this case

bathtub gin Bathtub gin refers to any style of homemade spirit made in amateur conditions. The term first appeared in 1920, in the Prohibition, prohibition-era United States, in reference to the poor-quality alcohol that was being made. As gin was the predom ...

. The original recipe was included in

Harry Craddock Harry Craddock (29 August 1876 – 25 January 1963) was an English bartender who became one of the most famous bartenders of the 1920s and 1930s. He is known for his tenure at the Savoy Hotel in London, and for his 1930 book, ''The Savoy Cocktail ...

's 1930

The Savoy Cocktail Book The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand, London, Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened ...

. A bar/restaurant in Seattle takes its name from the drink.

Variations

* The Despite the Weather cocktail is made with shochu, pisco, orange juice, lemon, passion fruit, and ginger syrup. * The drink may be served over ice in a short glass. *

Grand Marnier Grand Marnier () is a French brand of liqueurs. The brand's best-known product is Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge, an orange-flavored liqueur created in 1880 by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle. It is made from a blend of Cognac brandy, distilled esse ...

Cointreau Cointreau (, , ) is a brand of orange-flavoured triple sec liqueur produced in Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou, France. It is consumed as an apéritif and digestif, and is a component of several well-known cocktails. It was originally called Curaçao ...

may be substituted for the sweetener.

References

Cocktails with gin {{Mixed-drink-stub