today tim insisted on trying the sidecar drink, and while i wasn’t too exstatic about it while biking down the cold spadina, i must admit it is something interesting.
we ended up getting the best cointreau (which is in turn the best type of triple sec), and the best brandy/cognac – vsop courvoisier, and used fresh lemons.
it is insanely strong, but smooth and definitely warms you up.
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
what happened to cutting down on drinking for a couple of weeks?!
*giggle*
haha, hesi that was my first thought too!
:P