Have I extolled the glories of the Sidecar recently?  What a wonderful little cocktail.

It’s simplicity itself:

Sidecar

• 1-½ oz brandy or cognac (cognac is better)
• 1 oz Cointreau or other orange liqueur
• ¾ oz lemon juice (fresh is better)
• sugar rim optional

Shake the ingredients with ice, pour into a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass.

That’s it.  The fun is substituting other substances for the Cointreau.

Here we see one variation, which uses apricot brandy instead of orange liqueur.  Quite tasty.

There’s also my own Swedish Sidecar, which uses Swedish Punsch.  It may interest long-time readers to know that I solved the problem of how to make salted caramel sugar for that particular cocktail.

That is all.  I have nothing profound to say, just liking this cocktail right now.

update: And just playing around, here’s another one:

Holiday Sidecar

• 1-½ oz brandy or cognac
• ½ oz orange curaçao
• ½ oz Allspice Dram
• ¾ oz lemon juice (fresh is better)

This one has a bright, spicy flavor that just tastes holiday-ish.  A plain sugar rim really adds to it.

And one more:

Blue Chocolate

• 1-½ oz brandy or cognac
• ½ oz blue curaçao
• ½ oz Allspice Dram
• ½ oz crème de cacao
• ¾ oz lemon juice (fresh is better)

This one was a real surprise.