Four I'm Under My Host » sidecar

Sidecar revisited

Rob Teigen — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:15:13 +0000

Last week my colleagues from Sakai were in town and, of course, I had to make them a few cocktails. In particular, I wanted to make something that would be easy to serve up at the BBQ that Oliver Heyer hosted on Saturday afternoon. Being a cocktail fan himself, I knew Oliver would have the utensils and appropriate glassware so I didn’t need to worry about those items. But I wanted to talk to people, not spend the whole time being a bartender.

It was also unseasonably cold and had even rained earlier in the day, so I thought about “winter” 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. I’ve recently tried Scott Beattie’s Mendo Sidecar variation which substitutes Cointreau and Luxardo for the triple sec and reduces the brandy by 1 part.

Here’s what I shook up last Saturday:

2 1/2 parts Brandy
2/3 part Citronage (I like this better than triple sec and it is less costly than Cointreau)
1/3 part Luxardo
1 part freshly squeezed lemon juice

I premixed this in a pitcher and shook up 2 cocktails at once for the guests, garnished with an orange twist. Forgive me for the 2/3 part and 1/3 part (seeming) complexity. You can think of it as a total of 1 part sweet liqueur and simply use a mixture of Citronage and Luxardo. Experiment a bit with the mixture, although I find that Luxardo can be overpowering.

As it happens, I was also smoking some salmon for the party and it gave me an idea for the next time I make this. I wonder if putting the orange in the smoker briefly (30 minutes?) might add a nice touch to this drink? It would essentially be the equivalent of a dash of bitters. A future experiment…..

The Sidecar: I finally get it!

Rob Teigen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:40:28 +0000

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!

Applejack Sidecar

Michael — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:15:20 +0000

My wife’s favorite cocktail is probably the Sidecar, a brandy-based concoction. Recently we ran into some apple brandy and thought….”why not?” Here’s the recipe:

2 parts apple brandy
1 part Meyer lemon (really Meyer lemons are the best for cocktails)
1 part orange liquor (we like Citronage from Patron)

Shake in a cocktail shaker and serve up, with a twist of lemon. We both agreed this was better than the standard Sidecar.

Enjoy!