Episode 66: Kamikaze

• 2 ounces vodka

• 1 ounce triple sec

• 1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

• Lime wedge, for garnish

 Pour vodka, triple sec, and lime juice into a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake until frosty, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a lime wedge.

When researching the history of the kamikaze, most sources claim that the drink was invented at a bar on a naval base in Japan in the 1950s but didn’t make its way to the U.S. until the 1970s. This story seems to be more fiction than fact though, since most of these same sources say that the kamikaze was initially created as a shot but was so drinkable that it was eventually scaled up to a cocktail. But shots weren’t really a thing yet in the 50s.

The more likely origin story is that the Kamikaze didn’t become popular until the 70s because it wasn’t actually invented until the 70s. Because it was initially created as a shot, it was particularly popular with young people, especially sporty New Yorkers who liked to go skiing and sailing on weekends.

Two sport specific magazines from the 1970s appear to point to two possible origin stories. One, taken from the pages of Motorboating and Sailing magazine, claims that a bartender named Tony Lauriano created the Kamikaze in New York City in 1972. The story goes that he originally wanted to name the drink the Jesus Christ Superstar after the famous broadway show, but people thought the name was too weird and too long so he changed it to kamikaze. Another article, this one from Ski Magazine, claims the Kamikaze was originally invented in Florida in the early 70s but didn’t become popular until it spread to New York.

As is the case with a lot of cocktails, there’s no way to know for certain which story is true, but they both seem much more plausible than the story of the 1950s naval base.

Either way, we know that by 1975 the Kamikaze was popular enough that one liquor company was selling a pre-mixed Kamikaze cocktail in a bottle. While the shot version of the Kamikaze is mostly vodka with just a tiny bit of lime and triple sec for flavor, the cocktail version increases the ratio of mixers to spirit to 2 parts vodka to 1 part triple sec and 1 part lime juice. By the 80s the delicious and drinkable cocktail version was almost as popular as the boozier shot version.

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Episode 50: Frozen Margarita

Makes about 4 to 6 servings

• 8 oz Silver (Blanco) Tequila

• 6 oz freshly squeezed lime juice

• 6 oz triple sec (preferably Cointreau)

• 3 oz simple syrup or agave syrup

• 4 to 5 cups ice

• Garnish with lime

Combine all the ingredients in a high-powered blender. Pulse to break up the ice at first, and then blend until smooth, slushy, and free of large ice chunks. Pour into glasses and garnish with lime wheels or wedges if desired.
Any leftovers can be stored temporarily in the freezer and blended again just before serving (Make sure it hasn’t frozen solid before trying to blend) .

The margarita, Mexico’s classic Tequila sour, is one of the best-known cocktails in the world. Of course, Like most classic cocktails, the origin story of the margarita is a bit tough to nail down. 

There are countless stories about tequila drinks being created in the 1930s or 40s to impress some anecdotal woman named Margaret, or Maggie, or Marjorie. One story even says that the Margarita was named after actress Rita Hayworth (whose real name was Margarita Casino). All of these stories sound plausible-ish but none of them have any real proof.

Cocktail historian David Wondrich agrees that they have the timeframe right, 30s/40s, but that rather than being named after some unknown Margaret, the margarita is actually named after an older classic cocktail from the 1860s or 70s called a Daisy. The original Daisy was made with Whiskey, but most cocktails back then were seen as guidelines that could be made with any liquor you wanted. No matter what base spirit you used, the Daisy was made with lemon juice and orange liqueur mixed with soda.

 According to Wondrich, at some point in the mid-1920s, a customer walked up to Henry Madden, the bartender at the Turf Bar in Tijuana and asked for a Gin Daisy. He told a reporter in 1936, “I grabbed the wrong bottle”—the tequila bottle. “The customer was so delighted that he called for another and spread the good news far and wide.” By the mid-1930s, the tequila daisy was all over Mexico and was spreading to Los Angeles. Some people even started putting a salt rim on the glass, since the Daisy is a close cousin to the Sidecar, which has a sugar rim, and everybody knew that you drank tequila with salt back then.

As for the name, as it turns out, the Spanish word for the Daisy flower is actually “Margarita”.

 The first time the Margarita recipe appeared in print was 1953, in the pages of Esquire Magazine. “She’s from Mexico, Señores, and her name is the Margarita Cocktail. She is lovely to look at, exciting and provocative.” The recipe that followed is exactly what we would recognize today as a standard Margarita: tequila, lime juice, triple sec, and a salted rim. 

 A few years later, things really took off when a Los Angeles liquor distributor noticed that one of his accounts was selling more tequila than anyone else, thanks to the Margarita on their cocktail menu. He started advertising the drink to his other accounts, and by the early 60s, every Mexican restaurant in America knew how to make a Margarita. By the 70s, practically every bar did.

In the 1960s, blenders and frozen drinks were also becoming more common in bars, and the frozen Margarita became a very common and popular variation. Then, in 1971, a Dallas restaurateur named Mariano Martinez got tired of orders backing up while his bartenders blended margaritas one at a time. So, he bought an old soft-serve machine and adapted it to create the world’s first frozen margarita machine. It was an instant hit, and just a few years later Jimmy Buffet released his top-ten hit, Margaritaville. Martinez’s original margarita machine went into the Smithsonian in 2005.

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Episode 43: Long Island Iced Tea

• 3/4 ounce vodka

• 3/4 ounce white rum

• 3/4 ounce silver tequila

• 3/4 ounce gin

• 3/4 ounce triple sec

• 3/4 ounce simple syrup

• 3/4 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed

• Cola, to top

• Garnish: lemon wedge

Add the vodka, rum, tequila, gin, triple sec, simple syrup and lemon juice to a Collins glass filled with ice. Top off with a splash of cola and stir gently to combine. Garnish with a lemon wedge and serve with a straw.

The Long Island Iced Tea was created in 1972 by a bartender named Robert "Rosebud" Butt at the Oak Beach Inn in Long Island, New York.

Butt has said, "The world-famous Long Island Iced Tea was first invented in 1972 by me, Robert Butt, while I was tending bar at the infamous Oak Beach Inn. I participated in a cocktail creating contest. Triple Sec had to be included, and the bottles started flying. My concoction was an immediate hit and quickly became the house drink at the Oak Beach Inn. By the mid-1970s, every bar on Long Island was serving up this innocent-looking cocktail, and by the 1980s it was known the world over."

Obviously this drink is boozy AF – which could be why it took off as an almost instant classic. It’s sweet, and it’s strong, but doesn’t taste strong. It might also be because the recipe is so easy to remember and to make – with all the ingredients in the same amount.

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Episode 25: Triple Berry Wine Cooler

According to the kitchn, all you need to remember to make a wine cooler at home is the ratio 4/4/2. You can create any flavor profile you want, as long as you use with 4 ounces wine, 4 ounces soda, and 2 ounces of liqueur.
We decided to go with the classic combination of dry white wine and lemon lime soda, and then 80s it up with some mixed berry flavored triple sec to create a homemade triple berry wine cooler.

Triple Berry Wine Cooler

• 4 oz dry white wine

• 4 oz lemon lime soda

• 2 oz triple berry triple sec (recipe below)

• Fresh berries for garnish

Add ice to a large wine glass or pint glass. Pour wine, soda, & triple sec over ice and stir to combine. Top with a few fresh berries for garnish.

Triple Berry Triple Sec

• 16 oz Triple Sec

• 12 oz frozen mixed berries (ideally blackberries, raspberries, & blueberries) 

Combine in a sealable jar and let soak for 24 hours. Strain out berries and refrigerate liquor. 

Originally, wine coolers were something made at home using light, dry white wines mixed with lemon-lime soda. Essentially, they were just a tarted up version of a white wine spritzer.

By the early 1980s though, store bought wine coolers were being marketed as soda for adults. They came in individual size bottles with easy open twist off caps, and they contained real fruit, artificial fruit flavors, and cheap wine, with roughly the same alcohol content as beer (4-6%). Flavor-wise, they were kind of a combination of a wine spritzer and sangria. 

According to the Chicago Tribune, in 1985, wine coolers accounted for close to 10% of all wine consumption in the United States. By 1987 at their peak popularity, that number was up to 20%, and wine cooler sales topped a billion dollars annually. 

The original bottled wine cooler was called California Cooler, which was founded by a couple of southern California 20-somethings. Michael Crete, the cooler’s inventor said, “The gang would get together on the beach in Santa Cruz, and I would mix together all these tropical flavors—pineapple, grapefruit, lemon-lime, white wine, and a little bit of club soda.”

At the time, Crete was working in wine and beer sales, so he teamed up with his high school buddy with a business degree and they spent a year and a half perfecting the formula.

California Cooler took off like crazy. They were selling 10 million cases a year by 1984. But before long, the big wine producers like Gallo wanted in on the boom. They launched Bartles & Jaymes in 1985, flooding primetime TV with ads. Seagram’s followed suit, and before long California Cooler was losing market share and fast.

By 1987, wine coolers were EVERYWHERE, but by 88 & 89, people were starting to lose interest, and sales started to dip across the board. The real death knell for wine coolers though came in 1991 when Congress more than quintupled the excise tax on wine from $.17/gallon to $1.07/gallon. 

This made wine blending a losing game and before you knew it, sweet carbonated malt beverages like Zima and Smirnoff Ice jumped in to take over the market. Bartles & Jaymes and Seagram’s both launched their own malt beverages, but California Cooler didn’t’ survive.

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