Leaving Indiana

Last night I watched Leaving Las Vegas with Nicholas Cage for the first time. I like dark movies, but it's almost too dark for me. If you don't know the plot, in a nutshell, Cage is a failed alcoholic screenwriter whose wife has left him, so he goes to Vegas to drink himself to death. There's a romantic angle too, with a hooker, as those things go in Vegas.

One of the drinks he orders on his way to self-obliteration is a double kamikaze, which I wasn't familiar with, so tonight I devoted my liver to science and investigated the science of kamikazes.

A kamikaze is basically vodka, an orange liqueur, and lemon lime soda or sweet and sour mix. You can go from there with various versions: apple schnapps, blueberry stuff, goldschlaeger, etc. Seems like a frat boy cocktail to drink yourself to death on, but Cage was drinking lots of harder stuff to speed the process along.

Recipe no. 1 was basic: almost equal parts vodka, cointreau, lime. It wasn't my favorite; the cointreau seemed a little strong. I used Absolut Pears for all these (only because I'm out of Absolut Absolut).

Second was vodka, triple sec, and lime. I liked this one best. The triple sec was more subdued than the cointreau, and I could taste more lime.

Last, and Men's Health will shake their toned finger at me for having more than 2 drinks a day, was 1 part vodka, 1 part triple sec, and 2 parts sweet and sour mix. With the 2 parts sweet and sour, it was a lot more frat than the other two, too sweet for me.

These three drinks were good ones to end a muggy holiday with, but I sure wouldn't use them to do myself in unless I was diabetic.