A Winter Cocktail, The Sidecar

Every few months, I enjoy posting a cocktail recipe, something a little different from my usual recipes. In warm weather, there seems to be no end of eye-catching, luscious librations. Winter cocktails that appealed to me were few and far between for me, at least until I discovered the sidecar.

Cognac, Grand Marnier and Meyer lemon juice – what’s not to like? To be fair, I sampled a few recipes before settling on Ina Garten’s from her “Foolproof” cookbook. I come back to Ina’s recipes again and again, but always make an effort to give them a twist that makes them mine. Our tree is loaded with Meyer lemons, and I think they always add something special to whatever I am making in the kitchen.

The garnish for this cocktail, a cherry, really threw me at first. Last winter when I was considering posting a manhattan, I had searched far and wide for the highly recommended  amarena fabbri cherries. These are wild cherries in heavy syrup and usually come in a very pretty blue and white ceramic jar. It turns out that for about $10, Amazon is happy to send you a small jar.

Unfortunately, these cherries seemed both too small and so syrup-y that they “bled” through the cocktail. I wasn’t wild about Ina’s suggestion to soak dried cherries in yet more cognac, since this is one potent cocktail. So, I turned to the classic maraschino cherry, just as I had enjoyed in Shirley Temples are a kid. My mother used to warn me that each cherry had a drop of poison in them – something never confirmed – but I refused to give them up. Today, just as long ago, I prefer the stemmed maraschinos.

Since we didn’t seem to own a shot glass, I had trouble with Ina’s ingredients measured in ounces. I translated into 1/3 and 1/2 cup measures and the cocktail passed my test.

Cheers!

TIP: Triple sec is a less expensive and very acceptable substitution for the Grand Marnier.