Families of Cocktails

By Kara Mae Adamo.

The other day, as I was closing the bar down (I work at a popular establishment on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC which, because I fear corporate, shall remain nameless), one of our hosts came up to me with a notepad.

For the fun of it, we’ll call this guy Brian.

Brian is a capable guy looking to find a way into the seemingly allusive world of bartending and, of course, that means there are about three million boundaries in his way right now. It’s funny, getting behind a bar can be so difficult, but once you do it you never really get it out of your system. I’ve often said that, even if I won the lottery, I’d probably bartend once every week or two just to do it.

Anyway, Brian is trying to work around said boundaries by doing exactly what I did: he’s picking the brain of every one who will talk to him and he’s writing everything he learns down into a notebook.

I guess it’s the notebook that got me, but I put down the bar towel and sat with him to chat.

He wanted to know about all of the different cocktails.

All of them.

An arduous task for even the most experienced of us–the cocktail world is an ancient one and it’s variety and nuance has only exploded in recent years with the advent of what appears to be a reincarnated speakeasy culture. As an artist and a booze nerd, I couldn’t be happier about this, but I can imagine how broad and cumbersome it has to look to someone who’s never touched a shaker before.

As I talked to him, I remembered something my friend Patrick told me when he sat me down for a bar training [many, many] years ago: that certain cocktails belong in their own groups.

I’ve taken that concept and sort of run with it since that chat: mentally categorizing each drink into a family and, in doing so, my mental encyclopedia of booziness has organized itself into at least manageable chapters.

Instead of going on and on about each individual “Drink Family” in one blog, I’ve decided to write about them one at a time.

Today, let’s start with one of what I call “the Daisy Families”

Back in the 19th century, they started using citrus and sweetener to modify the harsh tastes of liquor (keep in mind that, prior to prohibition, our collective cocktail game was, well, not what it is now).

They called this The Daisy and, in my humble opinion, it more or less spurred on a number of sub-families, one of which we’re going to talk about here:

Daisy Family #1: Margaritas, Sidecars, and (I swear to you) Cosmopolitans

The classic recipe for a margarita is 2-ounces of tequila, 1-ounce of lime juice, 1/2-ounce of either simple syrup or agave, and 1/2-ounce of an orange liquor (I prefer Cointreau). Typically, this is served with a salted rim.

A sidecar, similarly, has 2-ounces of cognac, 1-ounce of lemon juice, 1/2-ounce of simple syrup, and 1/2-ounce of Cointreau. People often do this one with a sugar rim.

So, in other words, a sidecar is a cognac margarita and instead of lime, you use lemon.

While both of these can be served up or on the rocks, margaritas are usually on the rocks and sidecars are generally served up. Occasionally, people will ask for frozen margaritas, but those are basically slushies and have to be made differently, anyway.

A word about serving sidecars (and martinis, for that matter) up:

A standard martini glass holds about 4 ounces of booze if you were to fill it all the way up to the brim. Given the flimsy nature of the glass and the clumsy nature of the staff, I generally advise leaving about a quarter of an inch left between the drink and the rim, but do what you will.

Whether shaken or stirred, these drinks are served cold. In order to achieve this, ice must be agitated enough to chill the drink which means that a certain amount of it will melt into the liquor.

Generally, we break these drinks down into 3-ounce pours and then allow the ice to do the rest of the work, creating a perfect pour.

I learned to make sidecars by thinking of them as french versions of margaritas and, just like that, I had a new drink in my repertoire.

I also think of cosmos as belonging to the margarita family, even though they are technically considered modified martinis. It seems ridiculous, but if you think about it, they are:

2-ounces of citrus vodka, 1-ounce of cranberry juice, 1/2-ounce of cointreau, 1/2-ounce of fresh lime juice.  Shake them like hell and then strain them into a martini glass, but the structure of the drink is almost identical to a margarita. You just switch the main juice for cranberry, the tequila for vodka, and the simple syrup for fresh lime. (Pro-tip: squeeze two limes into the shaker and then drop them in while you shake the drink. I garnish mine with lemon ribbons swirling around the glass. People love it: a celebration they can drink.)

So there is family number one, at least according to my system:

Cosmopolitans, Margaritas, and Sidecars

Unlikely cousins, but virtually identical in structure.

Until next time,

Cheers.

Kara Adamo is a bartender, booze nerd, and booze writer. She is the author of Fancy Grape Juice: De-Snootifying the World’s Snootiest Beverage; Artimals: Coloring the Whimsical Wild; and Brews & Hues: A Coloring Book About Beer. Adamo currently lives in Washington DC.