White Lady

It will, but the balance shifts. Cointreau is 40 percent and fairly dry; most supermarket triple sec sits near 20 percent and much sweeter, so the drink loses its backbone and turns candied. If that's what's in the cupboard, take the lemon to 25 ml and the gin to 50.

Not in the Savoy version, though plenty of bars add it. Twenty milliliters of egg white or aquafaba softens the citrus edge and gives you the white cap the name suggests. It also mutes the gin a little, so use something at 45 percent or higher if you're going that way.

Lemons vary more than recipes admit, and a sharp winter one at 22 ml will run straight over 45 ml of gin. Pull the juice back to 18 ml, or add 5 ml of simple syrup. Adding more liqueur only makes it sweeter without touching the acid.

Only at the base spirit. A Sidecar is cognac, orange liqueur and lemon in these same proportions, so it comes out warmer and rounder, with dried fruit and oak behind it. Gin trades that for juniper and a drier, sharper drink. What you learn balancing one applies directly to the other.

London dry, and not a shy one. There's 22 ml of lemon and 22 ml of liqueur to push through, so a soft contemporary gin disappears and you're left with sweet lemonade carrying a hint of botanicals. Something juniper-heavy at 43 percent or above keeps its shape.

A classic White Lady calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Gin, 22 ml (0.75 oz) Triple sec / Cointreau, 22 ml (0.75 oz) Fresh lemon juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard White Lady is roughly 30% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.