Kamikaze is a drink made of vodka, curaçao, and lime juice, usually the preserved kind. It was typically thrown back as a shot, though later on it would be served as often as a cocktail. The ingredients are measured in equal parts, though some increase the vodka component (but delicacy of execution was never the hallmark of this drink). However, some early accounts of the shot have it consisting of only vodka and Rose’s lime juice, making it a close relative to the Gimlet. The drink emerged in the United States during the mid-1970s, during the early years of the disco era. Its more lasting fame may be as the progenitor of the more sophisticated Cosmopolitan, which added cranberry juice to the mix. As to the provocative name, the writer Gary Regan recalled one 1970s New York bartender observing, “You don’t feel like killing yourself after a Gimlet.” See
Recipe: Shake 30 ml each of vodka, triple sec, and lime juice with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass.
See also Cosmopolitan and Gimlet.
Gould, Heywood. Cocktail. New York: St. Martin’s, 1984.
By: Robert Simonson