Normally, I’d grab a bottle of a certain Russian label, but given the current moment, I recommend the equally good-but Swedish-Svedka. That being said, there are small differences there, so if you’re attached to the particular echos of flavor you find in, say, Ketel One, then buy Ketel One. Note that I’m not saying they’re all the same I’m just saying they’re all good, and mixed in drinks like the Kamikaze they will all taste so similar that it’s difficult to recommend one or the other. As long as you buy vodka above a certain quality bar-say, $10-they will all probably be good. Vodka: The whole idea of “Premium Vodka” is a little like a get rich quick scheme, in that it’s not that it can’t exist, but that that most everything that trades on that name is just a marketing ploy. To make the Kamikaze shot, you could just make the above smaller, or you could treat it like a shot and make it a bit stronger: Do 1oz vodka, 0.5oz triple sec, and between 0.25 and 0.5oz lime, and cut shaking time to 5-6 seconds. Size: The above is for a whole cocktail, a balanced drink to sip across time. Ketel One - Credit: Photo: Courtesy of Ketel One Strain up into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a lime wedge or wheel. KamikazeĪdd all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. It really is quite good, and worthy of (unironic) attention. The fact that it was conceived without thought and for decades was produced and consumed without thought is immaterial. Its clarity reads effortlessly as refinement. It’s a vodka gimlet made a little juicier with orange liqueur, lean and tart, avoiding the lingering presence of tropical fruit or the piquant sweetness of berries. Put the smallest effort toward its development-recruit fresh lime juice and a high quality Triple Sec-and the Kamikaze can be a great drink: clean, bright and refreshing. It may have fallen in with the wrong crowd, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad kid. But the Kamikaze? The quote above compares it unfavorably to a Gimlet, but it essentially is a gimlet. There’s very little that can be done for the Cement Mixer or the Brain Hemmorage, two irredeemably disgusting shots that taste even worse than they look. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all drinks can be great. He seems to be making the category error of judging a thing by its fanbase-which, as with Bitcoin or the Philadelphia Eagles, seems a little unfair. It seems unsporting to pick a drinks fight with the 1980s, so I’ll merely say I disagree. It exists merely to confer a little cachet on these pimpled baboons.” I’ve made the drink with rum and applejack and never got a complaint. It has no particular attributes that would distinguish a good kamikaze from a bad one, like a dry martini or a tart gimlet. It is a senseless, infuriating concoction.Its intent is instant inebriation.There are no standards for the kamikaze. “The kamikaze is one of a class of disco cocktails invented by barbiturated teenagers. There, too, we find haters-Heywood Gould, in his 1984 novel Cocktail (which would become the Tom Cruise movie of same name), wrote: You won’t find a peep about it in any of the serious mixology volumes written in the last decade, so to find out more, we have to meet the Kamikaze on its own turf. Or maybe that’s because it was an early harbinger of what would become a wave of “shooters,” saccharine concoctions famous less for their flavor than their provocative names (Buttery Nipple, Screaming Orgasm, Sex With an Alligator, blah blah, etc). Maybe it’s because of the name, which would be bigoted if it were in any way coherent. So what gives?Īs best we can tell, the Kamikaze was invented in the mid 1970s, and has lived in scorn ever since. Very similar drinks, very different reactions. The second is the Sidecar-cognac, orange liqueur and lemon juice-invented in Paris in the ’20s, bracing and racy, pure elegance, one of the handful of classic cocktails that enjoys near-unanimous respect in the drinks industry.Īnd finally, the Kamikaze- vodka, orange liqueur and lime juice-disparaged, diminished, disdained and generally shat upon by almost everyone who would call themselves a cocktail bartender or enthusiast. The first is the Margarita-tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice-the definitive tequila drink, one which can make a credible claim of being the most popular cocktail in the world, more or less beloved by more or less everybody.
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