What's The Difference Between A Jack Rose Cocktail Vs A Sidecar?

In between the roaring parties while nursing legendary hangovers, or during the many evenings spent watching that little green light blink on a distant shore, you may have wondered about the differences and similarities of two of your favorite 20th century cocktails: the Jack Rose and the Sidecar. Both drinks start with a brandy, although the brandies couldn't be more different from each other. 

The Jack Rose's brandy is apple flavored, for example, whether that be applejack (a type of apple brandy first made in colonial America in the 1600s) or any other apple brandy from around the world. Meanwhile, Sidecars use Cognac, a specific kind of brandy that must be made in the Cognac region of France from white grapes grown there, plus other strict rules and regulations. From there, both drinks also add a splash of lemon juice and a third and final fruity ingredient. The results are two drinks with a lovely balance of sweet and tart that are perfect for cocktail hours or paired with desserts.

The key flavor of a good Jack Rose is apple, so let's start there. If you want to be authentically American with it, using applejack from the centuries-old Laird & Company is a must. The business goes back hundreds of years, and even had its recipe requested for by none other than George Washington. But it's far from the only apple brandy on the market, so you can use your own favorites. You can also swap the apple brandy out for other apple-flavored liquors such as vodka if you're not a fan of brandy.

To complete the drink, add the aforementioned lemon juice plus the Jack Rose's final fruity ingredient: grenadine. Grenadine is a non-alcoholic pomegranate syrup (not cherry as many assume) used in all kinds of cocktails, but famously in a Tequila Sunrise. If you feel a Jack Rose sounds too fruity, don't stress, just use less grenadine so the sweet apple and tart lemon come forward more.

If a Jack Rose is more sweet, the Sidecar is more sour. It's essentially a cousin of a Whiskey Sour, after all. In fact, you can use different liquors instead of Cognac (including whiskey) because the drink's key flavors don't come from the brandy, but from the lemon juice and its third fruity ingredient: orange liqueur such as Cointreau. If you're not big on orange flavor, you can use less of it while increasing the amount of lemon juice and your main alcohol. And if you cut it out entirely, that's pretty much an incomplete fill-in-the-blank Sour.

But circling back to using whatever main alcohol you'd like, here you can get creative. Do you love rum? Use it to make a Boston Sidecar. Is tequila more your thing? That's a Tahona Sidecar. Want to really crank up the sweetness to serve it with dessert? Use amaretto to make ... an Amaretto Sidecar. Sorry, no fancy name for this one. Must've ran out at the name store. Whether using apple brandy makes it an Applejack Sidecar or a Jack Rose Sour, we'll leave up to you to argue.