03.04
Being a long time Martini man, up to now my cocktail focus has been on gin, vodka, and tequila based drinks like the Aviation, Lemon Drop, and Margarita. Even though Michael and his lovely wife Shannon have been longtime servers and drinkers of Sidecars, I’ve tended to steer away from brown liquor based cocktails. No more. My new favorite cocktail book, The Joy of Mixology by Gary Regan, talks about the Sidecar’s original manifestation from the mid-1800’s, the Brandy Crusta, as the prototype of a whole class of drinks he calls New Orleans Sours, which includes many of today’s favorite cocktails like the Margarita, Cosmopolitan, and Lemon Drop. He discusses how the proto-formula of a base spirit, orange flavored liqueur, and citrus juice provides an amazingly solid and versatile framework on which to build a cocktail. So one night after work last week, I picked up a $10 bottle of Raynal French brandy at Trader Joe’s and decided to see for myself. I started out with Regan’s recipe from Mixology, then upped the brandy ratio and added orange bitters for complexity and a sugared lemon wheel for garnish, which I’ve found to be a tasty accenting morsel to bite into while enjoying my earlier Minty Lemon Drops:
Rob’s Sidecar
- 2 parts brandy
- 1 part triple sec
- 1/2 part lemon juice
- 1 dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake vigorously, and serve in martini glasses garnished with sugared lemon wheels.
From the very first sip–WHAT AN EPIPHANY! Who knew that a brandy based cocktail could be as sweet, strong, balanced, and refreshing as a Margarita or Lemon Drop? The result was so smoothly enjoyable that I found myself verifying it with several more test rounds, and reprising that session several more times over the following week, including once with my gin-loving father during a ski weekend in Lake Tahoe (all in the spirit of research, of course…). I can see that the mixological balance for the ideal Sidecar will require fine tuning for different brandies and orange liqueurs, and have already started experimenting with Cointreau and Bols triple sec in place of the De Kuypers I used originally. I look forward to whiling away many a future evening hour on analysis and refinement of my recipe for this exquisite cocktail!
Related posts:
Welcome aboard the sidecar, my friend. Fasten your seatbelt…
[...] spirits like whiskey or brandy, and settled on a variation of a variation of an old favorite, the Sidecar. The classic sidecar is 3 parts brandy, 1 part triple sec and 1 part lemon juice, served up. [...]