All about cocktails
May 24, 2008
A cocktail is a style of mixed drink. Originally a mixture of distilled spirits, sugar, water, and bitters, the word has gradually come to mean almost any mixed drink containing alcohol. A cocktail today usually contains one or more types of liquor and flavorings and one or more liqueurs, fruit juices, sugar, honey, water, ice, soda, milk, cream, herbs, bitters, etc.
The first “cocktail party” ever thrown was allegedly by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1917. Mrs. Walsh invited 50 guests to her mansion at noon on a Sunday. The party lasted one hour, until lunch was served at 1pm.
The earliest known printed use of the word “cocktail,” was from “The Farmer’s Cabinet”, April 28, 1803, p [2]: “11. Drank a glass of cocktail — excellent for the head … Call’d at the Doct’s. found Burnham — he looked very wise — drank another glass of cocktail.”
There are almost as many tales about the origin of the word cocktail, as there are cocktails.
Some say that word cocktail was derived from the concoctions prepared by a French immigrant living in New Orleans, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. He prepared his oncoction of cognac with a dash of his secret bitters in a two-sided eggcup called a coquetier and this word was slowly Americanized as cocktail.
Others say word cocktail came from cock tailings. Colonial taverns used to store their spirits in casks. As the liquids lowered with passage of time, the spirits lose their flavor and potency so tavern keeper would have an additional cask into which the tailings from the low casks could be combined and sold at a reduced price. People came and ask for this cheap “cock tailings” or the tailings from the stop cock of the cask.
Some say that it was customary to put a feather, presumably from a cock’s tail, in the drink to serve both as decoration and to signal to teetotalers that the drink contained alcohol.
The word could also be a distortion of Latin [aqua] decocta, meaning “distilled water”.
Cocktails can be made with any liquor. We can have
Cocktails with absinthe
Cocktails with beer
Cocktails with brandy or cognac
Cocktails with cachaça
Cocktails with gin
Cocktails with rum
Cocktails with sake
Cocktails with tequila
Cocktails with vodka
Cocktails with whiskey/whisky or bourbon
Cocktails with wine, sparkling wine, or port
Some of the famous Cocktails are
Bloody Mary
Cosmopolitan
Daiquiri
Margarita
Martini
Mojito
Screwdriver
Gin and Tonic
Gimlet
Whiskey Sour
Rye Manhattan
Some cocktails are closely associated with particular movies. Here are a few fun pairings.
Martinis… Shaken, not stirred of James Bond
“Casablanca” and Champagne Cocktails
“M*A*S*H” and bone-dry martinis
The “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and the Pangalactic Gargleblaster
“Casino Royale” and the Vesper
“The Big Lebowski” and White Russians
“The Matador” and Margaritas
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