Hula Hula, Houla Houla or Hoola-Hoola

Difford's Guide
Discerning Drinkers (11 ratings)

Serve in a

Coupe glass
Ingredients:
1 fl oz Hayman's London Dry Gin
1 fl oz Orange Curaçao liqueur
1 fl oz Orange juice (freshly squeezed)
2 dash Orange Bitters by Angostura
3 drop Saline solution 4:1 (20g sea salt to 80g water)
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Read about cocktail measures and measuring.

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of pineapple wedge speared with a Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.
  3. SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
  4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
  5. Garnish with Ppneapple wedge on rim speared with a cherry.
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Strength & taste guide:


Review:

Gin and juice - orange with a splash of orange liqueur.

Variant:

For a drier version of this cocktail see Houla Houla.
The Orange Blossom is simply gin and juice with grenadine.

History:

First published, spelt Houla-Houla, in Robert Vermeire's 1922 Cocktails How to Mix Them with the notation, "This drink originates from Hawaii".

Houla-Houla Cocktail.
Fill the shaker half full of broken ice and add:
2/6 gill of Gin.
1/6 gill of Orange Juice.
1 teaspoonful of Curaçao.
Shake well and strain into a cocktail-glass.
This drink originates from Hawaii.

Robert Vermeire, Cocktails How to Mix Them, 1922

This cocktail then appears, spelt Hoola-Hoola, with an equal parts recipe in Harry of Ciro's 1923 ABC of Mixing Cocktails

Hoola-Hoola Cocktail.
⅓ Gin, ⅓ Curaçao, ⅓ Orange Juice.

Harry of Ciro's ABC of Mixing Cocktails, 1923

But is returned to its original spelling for its inclusion in Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book.

HOULA-HOULA COCKTAIL.
1 Dash Curaçao.
⅓ Orange Juice.
⅔ Dry Gin.
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Harry Craddock, The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930

Ray Buhen, one of Don The Beachcomber's original bartenders, who went on to open his own Tiki-Ti Bar in Los Angeles, introduced a third spelling. In his book Sippin' Safari, Jeff Berry features a recipe for a Hula Hula from the personal notebook Ray used in 1934 when he first worked as a bartender at the Beverly Hills Hotel, "1 ounce orange curaçao, 1 ounce gin, 1 ounce fresh orange juice."

Nutrition:

One serving of Hula Hula, Houla Houla or Hoola-Hoola contains 179 calories.

Alcohol content:

  • 1.3 standard drinks
  • 19.89% alc./vol. (39.78° proof)
  • 18 grams of pure alcohol
Difford's Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Bacardi's birthday image

Bacardi's birthday

The founder of Bacardi was a Catalan wine merchant called Facundo Bacardi Massó, who left Spain for Cuba in 1830.

Valentine's Day image

Valentine's Day

You can't have failed to notice that 14 February is St. Valentine's Day, a time of year when a sum equivalent to the GDP of a small country is spent on

Fernand Petiot's birthday image

Fernand Petiot's birthday

On this day in 1900, Fernand Pete Petiot was born in Paris, to parents who owned a guesthouse - he would come to fame, correctly or otherwise, as the inventor

Margarita Day image

Margarita Day

There are days for most things in the US, but Margarita Day is a subject very close to our hearts. Because, no matter who invented this classic cocktail,

World Bartender Day image

World Bartender Day

We're celebrating what the Oxford English dictionary defines as a person serving drinks at a bar, but we know as creative, hard-working folk who satisfy

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