welcome friends welcome back to
cocktails after dark today we're going
to make the sidecar the sidecar is
generally held up as one of the six
base
cocktails but if we want to talk about
the sidecar
we have to first look at the brandy
crusta because all of the people that
say that the sidecar is one of the six
original or the six based cocktails all
say but it comes from the brandy cresta
so
the brandy cresta was first published in
the 1860s
in the jerry thomas bar manual
this copy is from 1887.
same recipe as the earlier 1860s version
and
it starts out kind of different than any
other cocktail in this cocktail manual
because it talks about garnishing the
glass and so many of the cocktails um in
the 1880s there was no garnish maybe a
little bit of an orange peel but that's
it so
um jerry tells me to start out with a
small cocktail glass like this
rub the outside with lemon and we dip
the glass into sugar
so we got a nice sugar rim on the
outside
and then
take a long lemon peel
and stick it inside the glass
so we'll just set that aside while we
build the cocktail so
if this is a shaken cocktail and we're
going to start out he asks for three or
four dashes of gum syrup so i have a two
to one ratio gum syrup here
this is going to be a sweet cocktail i
think
put that in first
and next jerry asks for a dash of bokers
bitters so i'm going to put in one dash
of bokers bitters
now i think bokers bitters is
significant here bokers bitters they
stopped making them in 1920. this is
reproduction so it's not exactly boker's
bitters but boca's bitters has
bitter orange as one of the major flavor
components
so
a lot of later recipes use angostura
and then a dash of orange bitters and
then some of them just even later just
switched to totally angostura i think i
think the orange bitters might be
a big part of this cocktail okay the
next component is two dashes of curacao
and curacao is a bitter orange liqueur
so we'll put that in
we're looking for one dash of lemon
juice
put that in
jerry then asks for brandy so i've got
an american brandy because by this point
in the late 1880s american brandy was
coming on fairly strong there was quite
a bit of it in the marketplace
and french brandy french brandy was
disappearing from the marketplace
because of phylloxera
so now we ice off the shakers
and shake
[Music]
okay
glass ready and i'm going to double
strain
now later versions of this cocktail uh
that you see in other cocktail books
also include maraschino so there is
precedent for an orange liqueur to be
added to this as well but we're going to
go with the original from jerry
next up we're going to move on to what
people consider the sidecar now the
sidecar first shows up
in cocktail books in 1922 it shows up in
two different cocktail books in 1922 and
one of them is this one the abcs of
mixing cocktails by harry mecklehoen
the cocktail probably
dates to even earlier than that most
people point to world war one american
servicemen in paris ordering this
cocktail and this is what they got and
of course in order to
bring the whole story together the
american servicemen worked or were
detailed to the motorcycle units so they
all had side cars
you know cocktail stories are a little
bit crazy anyway so harry's harry's
recipe
for the sidecar is
equal amounts of cointreau
brandy and lemon juice he leaves out the
bitters and he leaves out the sugar
i guess leaning heavily on the cointreau
for the the sweetness level
when you get into other cocktails going
into
the 1930s
like this one from the savoy
the sidecar is a little bit different
in the proportions the ingredients are
exactly the same but the proportions are
a little bit different and when you get
into modern day
side cars
the proportions are even different again
so i'm going to make two of them i'm
going to make the original from harry's
book which is one to one to one
and
that again
gets made in this kind of a cocktail
glass again with a rim
there we go set that aside
and we'll start mixing
so one to one to one
let's go one lemon juice
freshly squeezed of course
one cuantro
and one brandy
ice
and shake
[Music]
and
again i will double strain
okay now there's no mention about
garnish
but
sidecar always seems to get an orange
peel so we'll set that one aside
now we'll move to
what most people would say
today
is what a side car should be and we'll
find out won't we so again
i've got a cocktail coupe
orange sugar rim
and we'll mix one up
so we'll start out with three quarters
of an ounce of lemon juice
one and a half ounces of cognac
and one ounce of curacao
could easily be cuantro
could easily be cointreau so we'll ice
and shake
just like the other cocktails
okay
and again double strain
into our cocktail glass
hey glenn hey jules hey friends okay
what 3 is not our usual no 3 is not the
usual number 3 is not the usual number
so this one still makes it more
difficult it's not an either or no not
today another
orange peel
i give you two versions of the sidecar
and
jerry thomas's brandy crusta
they look great
okay very pleasant try them all that's
very pleasant try them all
it's a little orangier orangier is that
a real word
hmm
okay on first impression
which one is your favorite
um
i think this one
uh me too
you know you can't always just choose it
because i do no i i think that's my
favorite i find this one unbalanced
i think this one is balanced
this one has a little more lemony
i got a real hit of orange on my nose
when i bring this one up
that one's still a very pleasant drink
yes let me
i would i would say i'm chasing that one
i want that one
i would say one two
three
with one and two i would order a second
one of but the third one i would never
order again yeah this one that little
bit of orange in this one well i don't
know if it's a little bit but there's a
little bit more orange flavor in that it
gives you just a
i guess two fruits are better than one i
don't know
is this one just lemon
um no it has
well let me get them
you know you start mixing drinks and you
can't remember what's in them right
let me see sure
uh so this is yes so this is orange
bitters
brandy curacao and lemon juice
this one is this one just has orange
bitters in it for orange flavor yes
yeah or does it you know it has curacao
it has curacao as well okay
this one is one to one to one brandy
curacao lemon
okay
this one is heavier on the cognac
because today
okay so brandy all cognac is brandy okay
so let's get that all all cognac is
brandy it's just cognac with a really
good marketing department
really what it comes down to it's from a
very specific part of france and they
stood up and said ours is the best it's
better than all the rest and so we're
going to call it cognac and nobody else
can call it cognac and we're not going
to call it brandy but it is brandy
now that we've had glance little all
right well
it's one of those things that you know
and people and i i i've had brandies
that are better than cognacs
yes you know i mean it's
so
are you gonna make me go head-to-head
yeah we'll just go head-to-head this is
an american brandy
and this is a french cognac
and that could be the difference
in why i think this one might be
unbalanced
because there's so many different
flavors
i feel like i need to clean my mouth
with this
yeah
well that's hot
that's too hot
this one is a little sweeter yeah so
that's the american brandy and this is
the french cognac
and the french cognac is hot
i didn't get that but you know 40
alcohol so it's not
and they're both they're both 40.
both 40.
and
am i going to be sipping no regularly no
and your choice of
curacao or orange liqueur
will also they all have do they have the
same do they have the same so these two
have cointreau
which two these two these two have
quantitative and this one has the friend
curacao interesting so this is sort of
the
if you're
starting to run low we're starting to
run low if you are you know of the
current cocktail
group
that is the go-to curacao for most
people someone's got a little more
orangey yeah
it could just be that this one's almost
empty um
is there much difference between them we
should do a tasting we should do we
should do a head-to-head tasting of
because there's a lot of different the
orange salad orange flavored liqueurs so
even though quantro doesn't say curacao
on the label anymore when they first
started making in 1849 alcohol sugar
orange peels it said curacao on the
label and it later took curacao off the
label because they wanted to elevate
themselves above all of the curacaos
that were crowding the marketplace
this gets really complicated this gets
really complicated so you know and i
wonder i wonder if
there were later brandy crustas
that had uh maraschino in it which is a
cherry liqueur ooh what would that bring
to you well that would have
that's interesting because that would be
that second fruit remember i said oh two
fruits yes i wonder if that little bit
of
would would change it
how much do you think it needs i don't
know and how much do you think we have
in the fridge yeah no we don't well we
do we do have lots but i don't think i
think this video is getting
too
and then just just to okay so because
people call this the sidecar one of the
six mother cocktails or six base
cocktails or six you know cocktails
one of the cocktails that they talk
about that several people talk about as
being
uh the next generation the next
generation is the cosmopolitan ah yes
okay
which is made with vodka
i find that very interesting because in
this 1933
cocktail book cocktails
they're kicks and sidekicks there is a
chapter
a whole chapter okay so the cosmopolitan
everyone sort of agrees on the
cosmopolitan because it is
a later cocktail apparently 1988
is the start of the cosmopolitan
cocktail 1988 people can point to a book
in 1988 and say that's it it's a total
80s cocktail you know it is very big
shoulder pads
you know
i can see tom cruise down at the dance
cave mixing one up okay
which
is a inside baseball for people who live
in toronto and like the movie cocktail
okay so
in this 1933 cocktail book
called cocktails their kicks and
sidekicks there's a whole chapter called
cosmopolitans interesting and in the
cosmopolitan section is a cocktail the
sidecar and i have to wonder if
the
guy
brandi quantro equal parts what's his
name who was the anyway so the i wonder
if the bartender who in 1988 coined
cosmopolitan and created that drink
knew about this book
and the section called cosmopolitan
because there's no drinks in the
cosmopolitan section called
the cosmopolitan no whiskey special
stinger sidecar sours orange blossom
okay so
if you take anything from this
we both think that the 1922 version of
the side car which is one to one to one
with brandy an american brandy
and cointro
is our favorite
the 1887 version
called the brandy crusta becomes a close
second good
and the more modern
version
of the of the sidecar that most people
you find in cocktail books today called
the perfect sidecar
not so perfect not less than perfect for
us
so try
different brandies different cognacs
different curacaos
and come up to your own conclusion i
mean it's
all personal choice experimentation yeah
a lot of experimentation way to spend an
afternoon
thanks for stopping by see you again
soon
i might have another bit of this