Holiday Sidecar
Holiday Sidecar
1/4 cup Granulated sugar
2 oz Cognac
1 oz Cointreau
1 oz lemon juice
Garnish: lemon peel
Place sugar on a side plate. Cut a lemon and rim the side of a coupe glass. Roll the glass over the sugar to form a thin crust and set aside. Combine cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice in a shaker and add ice. Shake for 15 seconds and strain into the coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.
Besides the sugar rim being a beautiful, seemingly festive addition to the coupe glass, it actually serves another purpose. The Sidecar is traditionally built to be more heavy on the citrus and the sugar rim was added to balance that out. These days, most bartenders prefer to forego the sugar rim by adding simple syrup to the recipe itself. Since this is meant to be a Holiday cocktail, I think going back to tradition seems more fitting - and visually more pleasing. You can choose to swap it out if you wish. In such a case, I would add 1/4 oz of simple syrup to the recipe.
