Sidecar

Paris or London, circa 1920–1922. Frank Meier at the Ritz Bar in Paris claims to have created it; Harry MacElhone at Harry's New York Bar in Paris also takes credit. The story of the military officer arriving in a sidecar is consistent across most accounts. The drink appears in Harry MacElhone's 1922 book 'Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails' and Robert Vermeire's 'Cocktails: How to Mix Them' (1922).

The Sidecar is the Margarita's sophisticated older cousin — Cognac, Cointreau, and fresh lemon juice in the sour template, with a sugared rim that transforms each sip with a crystalline sweetness that makes it the only sour where the sugared rim is structural rather than decorative. Created in Paris or London around World War I, the Sidecar is named for the motorcycle attachment in which, legend holds, a military officer was transported to a bar where the drink was made in his honour. It is one of the most balanced cocktails ever created: Cognac's fruit-and-oak, Cointreau's clean orange, and lemon's bright acidity in a 2:1:1 ratio that has remained unchanged for a century.

FOOD PAIRING: The Sidecar's Cognac-orange-lemon profile pairs with French cuisine, duck, and rich desserts. Provenance 1000 pairings: duck l'orange (the Cointreau orange mirrors the sauce's orange element), foie gras with brioche (the Cognac's oak complements the fat), canard aux cerises (Cognac and cherry is a classic French pairing), lemon tarte tatin (the lemon-orange bridge is direct), and dark chocolate truffles.