In the movie version of "Auntie Mame", that classic 1950s comedy-cum–gay icon, Rosalind Russell defines the ingredients for a simple, light breakfast to get her going as she arises in "the pearly part of the day"—i.e., about 3:00 PM. Nothing fancy, she instructs her houseboy Ito, just black coffee and a Sidecar.
The first time I ever saw "Auntie Mame" I got to wondering about that second item. Obviously a Sidecar was a cocktail of some sort, otherwise Mame wouldn’t be having it for breakfast. (If you’re seen "Auntie Mame", you’ll know what I mean by that.) Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I ordered a sidecar for my pre-dinner cocktail.
What I discovered was an utterly delightful, albeit sneaky, drink that immediately displaced the Manhattan as my absolute number-one favorite pre-dinner cocktail. Think of it as a Margarita gone Parisian: 2 parts cognac (or brandy), 1 part each Cointreau and lemon juice. Plop same into a shaker with lots of ice and give it a thoroughgoing shaking—enough to streak icy bits throughout. Coat the rim of a cocktail glass with lemon juice and then sugar. Strain the cocktail into the glass and add a tiny slice of lemon as a garnish, and there you are.
A Sidecar, like a Manhattan, is almost pure booze and is therefore capable of landing you flat on your keester in about five seconds flat. But unlike a Manhattan, the sheer firepower of a Sidecar isn’t all that apparent to the taste buds. That sunny citrus-y combination of Cointreau and lemon, that subdued brandy note, that sweet slap of sugar from the glass—you just want to chug the thing and order another. By the time your second one arrives, you’re already about three-quarters crocked. Have a third Sidecar and you may never get around to ordering dinner.
Sidecars conjure up Hemingway and the Paris Ritz and Harry’s Bar and Alexander Woollcott and Cole Porter and George Gershwin and the Venice Lido and Packards and Lindbergh and Valentino. They defined 1920s swank and served to separate the tony from the hoi polloi—after all, folks on Flatbush Ave couldn’t get cognac or Cointreau from the neighborhood bootleggers. Drinking a Sidecar in 1920s New York meant you had connections, you had money, you had the phone number of the most au courant bootlegger-to-the-stars. A Sidecar was something you drank at the Ritz or the Carlton, not surreptitiously out of a teacup at the corner speak.
That probably explains why the Sidecar went out of vogue with the repeal of Prohibition, to be replaced by His Majesty, the Martini. But citrus-based cocktails have never lost their chic, vide the ever-popular albeit often nauseating Margarita or the now thoroughly old-fashioned Old Fashioned. Not to mention Daiquiris—oh, how 1965 of me—or Mimosas—oh, how faggoty of me, or Cosmopolitans—oh, how ditto of me. But Daiquiris are slurpees gone decadent, Mimosas are just too declassé for words, and Cosmopolitans…well. Cosmos require cranberry juice, for the love of Mike. May they languish in Queer Hell for all eternity.
But the grand old Sidecar is making a comeback, like a grand old dowager with bobbed hair strutting down the street wearing her tweed suit, swinging a string of pearls, and singing I’d Rather Be Loved By You at the top of her voice, boop-boop-ee-doop. Unlike other Prohibition-era curiosities brought out briefly back into the lights and then shoved quickly back into the shadows, the Sidecar just might be taking its well-deserved place as a true class act amongst cocktails, a drink for the discriminating, a libation requiring some skill in preparation but as potent as a slug of iced vodka nonetheless. Tastier than a Martini, sunnier than a Manhattan, and classier beyond reckoning than a Cosmo, a Sidecar just might be the perfect cocktail to add that certain je ne sais quoi to an evening’s festivities.
So get out your cocktail shaker, your ice, your lemons and your sugar and your martini glasses, and go to it. You have nothing to lose but your sobriety…
A Sidecar, just waiting to happen