38 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • OCTOBER 2017 38 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 38 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
FOOD & DRINK
Bless you, A three-wheeling classic
Father Kir
Aligoté, the lesser white of Burgundy,
Harry’s New York Bar in Paris is famous
for having concocted dozens
of classic cocktails over the years,
including the Bloody Mary, the
Monkey Gland and the French 75.
Some of the stories are even true.
One that is decidedly not is the
tale of the Sidecar, which perfectly
blends orange liqueur, lemon juice
and cognac into a warming, trustyold
friend of a drink that’s perfect
for fall evenings and football
afternoons.
(As with all old friends, a little
caution is not misplaced. They can
steal up on you.)
Harry’s owner Harry MacElhone
initially credited the Sidecar to
Pat MacGarry, the bartender at
Buck’s Club in London during the
Jazz Age, but the recipe apparently
proved too popular not to crib. By
the time Harry’s book “Barflies
and Cocktails” came out in 1927,
MacElhone was claiming the
drink’s invention was all his.
That story remained unchallenged
until 1948, when American attorney
David Embury published
his authoritative “The Fine Art of
Making Drinks,” in which he gave
credit to an American army captain
stationed in Paris during World
War I and linked the drink’s name
to the motorcycle and sidecar the
officer purportedly rode.
Embury’s version has long since
been debunked by the drinking
establishment, which maintains
that the Sidecar is really an offshoot
of a 19th Century New Orleans
drink called the Brandy Crusta,
which combined cognac and orange
curaçao with a few splashes of bitters,
lemon juice and simple syrup.
And the name? Many mixologists
note that “sidecar” is bar slang for
the glass of extra drink you get
when the bartender over-mixes for
the size of the regular serving glass.
No army officers required.
Origins aside, there remain two
competing schools of thought on
measurement. The so-called French
school calls for equal parts of each
of the three ingredients; the English
school calls for two shots of cognac
to one shot each of triple sec and
lemon. Personal variations abound.
Reducing the lemon juice to under
an ounce is popular; increasing the
cognac ratio is even more so.
I’m definitely an English schooler.
Use a good French cognac or
California brandy and Cointreau
or Grand Marnier, which have
sweetness but depth. Your lemon
juice should be freshly squeezed, of
course. Shake, strain and garnish
with orange peel.
The only remaining question is
whether you should sugar the rum
of your glass, which became popular
in the 1930s. Purists eschew
the practice because it upsets the
drink’s delicate balance of sweet,
smoke and citrus, although you
can easily adjust the other ingredients
to restore balance if you like a
sugary lead.
After all, as Crosby Gaige noted in
his 1941 classic “сocktail Guide and
Ladies’ Companion,” Cocktails, by
definition, “are ruled and governed
by the caprice and creative instinct
of each individual mixer.”
Then sit back and imagine you’re
at Harry’s, where – true story –
Gershwin used the house piano to
compose “An American in Paris”
and – less true – the young James
Bond lost both his briefcase and
virginity in a single night.
I’m betting Sidecars were involved.
– JOHN KOMINICKI
has long been flavored
with black currant liqueur, which
masked the wine’s traditional
second-rate character with a bit
of sweet to create one of France’s
most popular aperitifs.
Served in cafes since at least
the 1840s, the drink was simply
known as the “blanc-cassis”
until after World War II, when a
Catholic priest named Félix Kir
became the mayor of Dijon. Kir
(pronounced keer) was a colorful
character, a former Resistance
fighter credited with helping
5,000 Allied prisoners of war
escape in 1944 and a proponent
of the “twinning” movement that
established international sister
cities after the war.
Visiting foreign delegations were
invariably served the local cheap
white with beloved currant liqueur,
creme de cassis a splash of
Dijon’s beloved currant liqueur,
and the lowly blanc-cassis soon
became known as the Kir or,
when mixed with champagne or
other bubbly, the Kir Royale.
Father Kir served as mayor until
his death in 1968. Interestingly,
producers of Aligoté have significantly
stepped up their game in
recent years, and a Kir is much
more likely based on a Chablis or
other white Burgundy today.
Waiters may offer a blackberry
or peach version, but you should
demur.
– JLK