El Sidecar - The Perfect Cocktail...Delivered

So I continue my relentless search for a bar, lounge and/or cantina in Mexico City that can deliver a good, wait, scratch that, that can make "a" Sidecar. Everywhere I go, I start to describe what a Sidecar is, but my problem is that I start describing the literal translation of the word "sidecar" and the minute I mention "una motocicleta" I lose my bartender/waitress, etc. and end up with either a Cuba Libre (una "mentirita") or a Mojito. Not that there's anything wrong with the cubas, mojitos and sometimes micheladas that I end up with. In fact, I drink those drinks and move on with my agenda, and that's that. But sometimes, like today, on a grey Tuesday evening in Mexico City, all I want is a good Sidecar. And where can I head towards in this megalopolis city of 23 million to meet this craving for the mid-week cocktail that will lubricate my brain and prepare it for the posadas, holiday parties, and company events that descend on this 21st century male in mid-December?

In my attempt to promote the basic ingredients for this superb cocktail, I have decided to take matters into my own hands, and like any self-respecting blogger nowadays, I will provide a link to a website that has already described the Sidecar, and go as far as to copy/paste such content here (of course, providing as much credit to such website for their first crack at inventing the wheel, etc.).

With that said, enjoy the following Sidecar lesson:

DrinkBoy Says: Ingedients and Proportions are very important with this drink. Cointreau and fresh squeezed lemon juice are crtical to the Quality of the final product. Add the Brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice to a shaker with ice, shake well, and strain into a well chilled cocktail glass. You can also wet the rim of the glass with the wedge of lemon, then coat the rim with sugar. Garnish with a twist of lemon peel.

Recently, while talking with Colin Fields, the head bartender at the Bar Hemmingway at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, another very important aspect of the Quality cocktail was brought to my attention by way of the Sidecar. He commented on the importance of the history of a cocktail in order to understand how it was originally intended to be served. While the true origins of many cocktails are lost to the raveges of time, and others suffer from too many contradictory origins, anything that can help you put more behind a cocktail then just its list of ingredients, can help you to add a sense of character to your drinks.

Colin recites that the Sidecar was developed during WWI, when a certain regular cusomer arrived at the Ritz on his motorcycle (replete with sidecar), and asked the bartender for a cocktail that would help take off the chill. The bartender was caught in a delema, a drink to remove a chill would appropriatly be brandy, but brandy was traditionally an after dinner drink, and his patron was wanting something before dinner. So he combined cognac, cointreau, and lemon juice to mix a cocktail whos focus was on the warming qualities of both the brandy, and the cointreau, while the lemon juice added enough of a tartness to make it appropriate as a pre-dinner cocktail. So a properly made sidecar should betray its roots as a drink that warms your palate if not your bones.

As I mentioned already, my own experiments with the Sidecar taught me the importance of ingedients. Lets consider the ingredients of ths cocktail, Brandy, Orange Liquore, Lemon Juice. These ingredients offer a lot of flexibility. For Brandy, we can select from a broad range of qualities, including Cognac, Armagnac, or just a good Quality brandy. For the orange liquore, we can use simple Triple Sec, Orange curaco, Grand Marnier, Cointreau, or a number of others. And for the lemon juice, we can use fresh squeezed, bottled, or (shudder) bottled sour mix.

REMEMBER THE COINTREAU

For my first experiment with the sidecar, I chose to use a middle of the road Brandy, and then test the differences between Cointreau and Triple Sec, and fresh versus bottled lemon juice. My first drink used Cointreau and fresh lemon juice. I was struck by the almost velvety smooth texture of the drink, while still providing the bite of the lemon. It had a certain character that almost begged to be the object of contemplation. A truely enjoyable cocktail.

BEWARE OF THE TRIPLE SEC EFFECT ON YOUR SIDECAR

Next I tried to substitute Triple Sec for the cointreau. My hope was that the lemon juice would silently mask the differences between these two orange liquores, after all cointreau is about three times the cost of many Triple Secs. Unfortunately, my frugal side was going to take a beating on this one. I found the difference to be astounding. The Triple Sec turned this previosly exquisitly wonderful cocktail into just a simple and unassuming drink. The sort of cocktail you might grab off of a full tray that was making its way through the room and absent mindedly sip on it as you chatted politics with a small group of friends.

FRESH LEMON JUICE

Next for my test, was to see if fresh versus bottled lemon juice made enough of a noticeable difference. To give this test as much of a chance to suceed as possible, I switched back to cointreau. My lesson here, was that this varriation was essentially a total waste of my presious cointreau. While my liqour cabinet still stocks Triple Sec, it no longer contains bottled lemon juice.

To help illustrate some of the variations on this classic drink, here are some of the recipes that I found in the books from my cocktail collection:

Old Mr. Boston DeLuxe Official Bartender's GuideNovember, 1946Sidecar Cocktail
Juice 1/4 Lemon
1/2 oz. Old Mr. Boston Triple Sec
1 oz. Old Mr. Boston California Brandy
Shake will [sic.] with cracked Ice and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass.

Esquire Drink Book1956

SIDECAR (1)
2/3 Brandy
1/3 Cointreau
Dash of lime juice
Shake with very fine ice; strain into frosty cocktail glass

SIDECAR (2)
(50 Million Frenchmen...)
1/3 lemon juice
1/3 Cointreau
1/3 cognac
Shake with cracked ice; strain

The Perfect Cocktail by Greg Dempsey
1995 Sidecar
1 shot brandy
1/2 shot triple sec
Splash of sour mix
Serve

The Official Harvard Student Agencies Bartending Course 1995 Sidecar
1 oz. five-star brandy
1 oz. triple sec
juice of 1/2 lemon
Shake and strain into a cocktail glass

American BarCharles Schumann 1995 Sidecar
3/4 oz lemon juice
1/4 - 3/4 oz triple sec
1 1/2 oz brandy
Shake well over ice cubes in a shaker, strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Angostura Professional Mixing Guide 1995 Sidecar
1 oz Brandy
1 oz. Triple Sec or Cointreau
1 oz. Lemon Juice
Shake ingredients with cracked ice. Strain into cocktil glass

Bartending for Dummies Ray Foley 1997 Sidecar
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 tsp. Fresh Lemon Juice
1 oz. Brandy
3-4 Ice CubesCombine all ingredients in a shaker and shake vigorously. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.