When used to refer to any generic alcoholic mixed drink, cocktail may mean any beverage
that contains two or more ingredients if at least one of them contains alcohol.
Usage and related terms When a cocktail contains only a distilled
spirit and a mixer, such as soda or fruit juice, it is a highball; many of the International
Bartenders Association Official Cocktails are highballs.
When a cocktail contains only a distilled spirit and a liqueur, it is a duo and when
it adds a mixer, it is a trio.
Additional ingredients may be sugar, honey, milk, cream, and various herbs.
Etymology The origin of the word cocktail is disputed.
The first recorded use of the word cocktail not referring to a horse is found in The Morning
Post and Gazetteer in London, England on March 20, 1798:
The Oxford English dictionary cites the word as originating in the U.S.
The first recorded use of the word cocktail as a beverage in the United States appears
in The Farmer's Cabinet on April 28, 1803:
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.
The first definition of cocktail known to be an alcoholic beverage appeared in the May
13, 1806, edition of The Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York,
in which an answer was provided to the question, "What is a cocktail?".
The editor Harry Croswell replied:
Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and
bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering
potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles
the head.
It is said, also to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed
a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.
Development There is a lack of clarity on the origins
of cocktails.
Traditionally cocktails were a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters.
But by the 1860s, a cocktail frequently included a liqueur.
The first publication of a bartenders' guide which included cocktail recipes was in 1862
— How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant's Companion, by "Professor" Jerry Thomas.
In addition to listings of recipes for punches, sours, slings, cobblers, shrubs, toddies,
flips, and a variety of other types of mixed drinks were 10 recipes for drinks referred
to as "cocktails".
A key ingredient which differentiated cocktails from other drinks in this compendium was the
use of bitters as an ingredient.
Mixed drinks popular today that conform to this original meaning of "cocktail" include
the Old Fashioned whiskey cocktail, the Sazerac cocktail, and the Manhattan cocktail.
The ingredients listed match the ingredients of an Old Fashioned, which originated as a
term used by late 19th century bar patrons to distinguish cocktails made the “old-fashioned”
way from newer, more complex cocktails.
The term highball appears during the 1890s to distinguish a drink composed only of a
distilled spirit and a mixer.
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 home at noon on a Sunday.
The party lasted an hour, until lunch was served at 1 pm.
The site of this first cocktail party still stands.
In 1924, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis bought the Walsh mansion at 4510
Lindell Boulevard, and it has served as the local archbishop's residence ever since.
During Prohibition in the United States, when alcoholic beverages were illegal, cocktails
were still consumed illegally in establishments known as speakeasies.
The quality of liquor available during Prohibition was much worse than previously.
There was a shift from whiskey to gin, which does not require aging and is therefore easier
to produce illicitly.
Honey, fruit juices, and other flavorings served to mask the foul taste of the inferior
liquors.
Sweet cocktails were easier to drink quickly, an important consideration when the establishment
might be raided at any moment.
Cocktails became less popular in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, until resurging
in the 1980s with vodka often substituting the original gin in drinks such as the martini.
Traditional cocktails began to make a comeback in the 2000s and by the mid-2000s there was
a renaissance of cocktail culture in a style typically referred to as mixology that draws
on traditional cocktails for inspiration but utilizes novel ingredients and often complex
flavors.
See also
William "Cocktail" Boothby, early San Francisco publisher of cocktail recipes
Lists List of cocktails
IBA Official Cocktail List of Highballs
List of Duo and Trio Cocktails List of beverages
Flaming beverage Devices for Producing and Imbibing
Cocktail glass Cocktail party
Cocktail shaker The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks – A classic
cocktail book Media
Cocktail Cocktail
Cocktail References
Diageo Masterclass, Cocktail recipes with Whiskey
External links Media related to Cocktail at Wikimedia Commons
Cocktails at DMOZ Wikibooks Cookbook
Cocktail story By Felix Fikhman