When I asked my girlfriend recently to pick up lemons for making cocktails and she brought me Meyer lemons, I was a little dismayed at first. The Meyer lemon, a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, is sweeter, less acidic, and more aromatic than its conventional cousin (most lemons sold in supermarkets are Eureka or Lisbon lemons). I wasn’t sure how it would work in the cocktails I was planning to make.
After the first two experiments I was prepared to declare a winner, and almost didn’t test the Sidecar, a classic sour that uses orange liqueur instead of simple syrup. In this case, though, the cocktail made with regular lemon was better than the Meyer lemon one—which, in an unexpected twist, tasted flat by comparison. My theory is that because the cocktail already involves orange, the mandarin flavor of the Meyer lemon makes the drink cloying in comparison to a version made with the zippier, more acidic standard lemon. (Michael Ruhlman seemed to like the Sidecar he made with Meyer lemon just fine, but he did use a pricey Armagnac; the brandy I used in mine wasn’t bad, but certainly not up there in quality with the best Armagnac.)
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice; shake and strain into a cocktail glass.
