By lex, on July 29th, 2007
The workload today involves cost estimating reading from NAVAIR’s Business Financial Management Guide and a lovely bit of light reading from the US Army’s Economic Analysis Manual, specifically having to do with Economic Analysis Process, Cost Estimating, Benefit Analysis and Evaluation Methods for Comparing Alternatives.
Bracing stuff.
What is not, however, is a Sidecar. ** Below is the original recipe from Harry’s New York Bar ** in Paris (a lovely slice of Americana just off the Avenue de l’Opera between the Champs Elysee and the Centre Georges Pompidou, if you haven’t been):
1 1/2 oz. Brandy
1/2 oz. Cointreau (some will favor triple sec)
1/2 oz. Lemon or Lime Juice
Combine all the ingredients in a shaker filled with ice, shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.
The prohibition-era Sidecar has gotten a reputation in certain quarters – unfairly, I believe – as being something of a ladies drink, perhaps because the lack of such brute force spirits as vodka, gin or bourbon and perhaps because mere heathens have been known to sugar the rim of the cocktail glass, the rough beasts.
But like the poor, the declasse will always be with us and there’s no accounting for taste. All that we need to understand is what the Sidecar actually is: A light and cool blend of complex flavors whose praises H. L. Mencken once sang, calling it one of perhaps a dozen cocktails of any real worth.
Which, as compliments go, you can’t say fairer than that.
It might help to put on some Gershwin, close your eyes and picture yourself in a certain piano bar off 5, Rue Danou. Affecting a certain world weariness. Sip, sigh. Repeat.
Now: Back to work.
** 08-12-2018 Original link gone; replacement found – Ed.
The Lexicans 