Zen, Motorcycles and Cocktail Making...

The Sidecar

What a strange name - the rumour machine has it, that the Sidecar Cocktail was conceived by a dashing American Army Captain who was seen to ride around the streets of Paris during World War 1, always holding one of these cocktails to hand.

Mmm. Not so sure about that one, but a little bit of romanticism rarely hurt, so let's just go with it for a while....

My all-time hero - Steve McQueen

having sidecar fun on the

set of "The Great Escape"

Before we look at “The Sidecar” - please indulge an early digression into the land of Zen…..

It sorta makes sense because as I was researching the topic for this week and inevitably there was an e-trip to Wikipedia…:

… The Ritz Hotel in Paris claims origin of the drink. The first recipes for the Sidecar appear in 1922, in Harry MacElhone's Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails and Robert Vermeire's Cocktails and How to Mix Them. It is one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948)….

This is where the Zen part comes in…. And it shows that the wheel is rarely reinvented. I had heard this sentiment mentioned and I couldn’t quite place it…. Let me explain…