Cocktail

A typical cocktail, served in a cocktail glass

When used to refer to any generic alcoholic mixed drink, cocktail may mean any beverage that contains three or more ingredients if at least two of them contain alcohol.

Usage and related terms

When a mixed drink 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.^[1]

Etymology

The origin of the word cocktail is disputed.

The first recorded use of cocktail not referring to a horse is found in The Morning Post and Gazetteer in London, England, March 20, 1798:^[2]

Mr. Pitt,
two petit vers of “L’huile de Venus”
Ditto, one of “perfeit amour”
Ditto, “cock-tail” (vulgarly called ginger)

The Oxford English Dictionary cites the word as originating in the U.S. The first recorded use of cocktail as a beverage (possibly non-alcoholic) in the United States appears in The Farmer's Cabinet, April 28, 1803:^[3]

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 a Cocktail by Harry Croswell

The first definition of cocktail known to be an alcoholic beverage appeared in The Balance and Columbian Repository (Hudson, New York) May 13, 1806; editor Harry Croswell answered the question, "What is a cocktail?":

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, in as much 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.^[4]

In New Orleans, the Sazarac was prepared using an eggcup measure as a jigger. The French for eggcup is "coquetier" (pron. cock-a-tee-eh), and it is likely that the English word cocktail is simply a gastronomic loan-word from the French.

Several authors have theorized that cocktail may be a corruption of cock ale.^[5][6][7]

In his Imbibe! (2007) David Wondrich also speculates that cocktail is a reference a practice for perking up an old horse by means of a ginger suppository so that the animal would "cock its tail up and be frisky."^[8]

Development

There is a lack of clarity on the origins of cocktails.^[9] Traditionally cocktails were a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters.^[10] But by the 1860s, a cocktail frequently included a liqueur.^[11][12]

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 recipes for punches, sours, slings, cobblers, shrubs, toddies, flips, and a variety of other mixed drinks were 10 recipes for "cocktails". A key ingredient differentiating cocktails from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters. 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.

Flaming cocktails

The ingredients listed (spirits, sugar, water, and bitters) match the ingredients of an Old Fashioned,^[13] 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.^[14]

The term highball appears during the 1890s to distinguish a drink composed only of a distilled spirit and a mixer.^[15]

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.^[16]

During Prohibition in the United States (1919–1933), 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.^[17] There was a shift from whiskey to gin, which does not require aging and is therefore easier to produce illicitly.^[18] 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,^[19] 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.^[20]

See also

• William "Cocktail" Boothby, early San Francisco publisher of cocktail recipes

Lists

• List of cocktails
• IBA Official Cocktail
• 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 (1988 film)
• Cocktail (2010 film)
• Cocktail (2012 film)

References

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Bartending/Cocktails

• Media related to Cocktail (category) at Wikimedia Commons
• Wikibooks Cookbook

Cocktails List of cocktails Absinthe Corpse Reviver #2 Death in the Afternoon Earthquake Green Russians Green Vesper The Modernista Moloko Plus Sazerac Beer Black and Tan Black Velvet Boilermaker Brass Monkey Hangman's Blood Irish Car Bomb Michelada Porchcrawler Sake Bomb Shandy Snakebite U-Boot Brandy or cognac B & B The Blenheim Brandy Manhattan Brandy Sour (Cyprus) Brandy Sour/Brandy Daisy Chicago Cocktail Curacao Punch Four Score Hennchata Incredible Hulk Jack Rose Nikolaschka Orgasm Panama Piscola Savoy Affair Savoy Corpse Reviver Tom and Jerry Zombie Cachaça Batida Caju Amigo Leite de Onça Quentão Rabo-de-galo Royce Champagne Black Velvet Buck's Fizz Kir Royal Gin 20th Century Alexander Bijou Bloodhound Bronx Gibson Gimlet Gin and tonic Gin buck (a Buck variant) Gin pahit Gin Sour Hanky-Panky Joker The Last Word Lime Rickey Lorraine Marjorama Mickey Slim My Fair Lady Old Etonian Pall Mall Paradise Pegu Pimm's Cup (incl. Nos. 1, 3, 6, and variants) Pink Gin Pink Lady Royal Arrival Salty Dog Shirley Temple Black Tom Collins White Lady or Delilah Wolfram Ouzo Ouzini Rum Blue Hawaii Brass Monkey Bumbo (also called a Bombo or Bumboo) Bushwacker Caribou Lou Cojito Corn N' Oil Culto A La Vida El Presidente Fish House Punch Flaming Dr Pepper Flaming Volcano Fluffy Critter The Goldeneye Grog Gunfire Havana Cooler Hurricane Jack's Shadow Jagertee Macuá Painkiller Royal Bermuda Cocktail Rum Swizzle Staten Island Ferry Sundowner Ti' Punch Tom and Jerry Tschunk Yellow Bird Zombie Sake Ginza Mary Sake Bomb Tamagozake Tequila Bananarita Bloody Aztec Chimayó Cocktail El Toro Loco Patron and Redbull Matador Paloma Slammer Royale or Tequila Slammer The T.J. Tequila and Tonic Tequila Mockingbird Tequila Sour Torito Tequila Cocktail Two kids in A Cup Vodka Agent Orange Apple Martini or Appletini Astro pop Batida Bay Breeze BLT cocktail Blue Lagoon Bull Shot Caesar Caipivodka Cape Cod Chi-Chi Colombia Fizzy apple cocktail Flirtini Gimlet The Goldeneye Greyhound Harrogate Nights Hi-fi Ice Pick Kensington Court Special Kremlin Colonel Lemon Drop Lime Rickey Link Up Mudslide Orange Tundra Paralyzer Red Lotus Red Russian Rose Kennedy Cocktail Salmiakki Koskenkorva Salty Dog Vodka Gimlet Vodka Martini or Kangaroo. Vodka McGovern Vodka Sundowner Vodka Sunrise Wassa World White Russian Woo Woo Yorsh Whisky Amber Moon Blue Blazer Bobby Burns Bourbon Lancer Brooklyn Churchill Farnell Four Horsemen Jack and Coke Jungle Juice Lynchburg Lemonade Missouri Mule Nixon Rob Roy Seven and Seven Three Wise Men Ward 8 Whisky Mac See also Cocktail glass Cocktail party Cocktail shaker Dale DeGroff Flaming beverage Highball List of duo and trio cocktails List of IBA official cocktails Mixed drink The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks   Liquor portal

International Bartenders Association Official Cocktails List of IBA official cocktails The Unforgettables Alexander Americano Angel Face Aviation Bacardi cocktail Between the Sheets Casino Clover Club Daiquiri Derby Dry Martini Gin Fizz John (Tom) Collins Manhattan Mary Pickford Monkey Gland Negroni Old Fashioned Paradise Planter's Punch Porto flip Ramos Fizz Rusty Nail Sazerac Screwdriver Sidecar Stinger Tuxedo Whiskey Sour White Lady Contemporary Classics Bellini Black Russian Bloody Mary Caipirinha Champagne cocktail Cosmopolitan Cuba Libre French Connection French 75 Godfather Godmother Golden Dream Grasshopper Harvey Wallbanger Hemingway Special Horse's Neck Irish coffee Kir Long Island Iced Tea Mai Tai Margarita Mimosa Mint julep Mojito Moscow mule Piña colada Rose Sea Breeze Sex on the Beach Singapore Sling Tequila Sunrise New Era Drinks Barracuda Bramble B-52 Dark 'N' Stormy Dirty Martini Espresso Martini French Martini Kamikaze Lemon Drop Martini Pisco Sour Russian Spring Punch Spritz Veneziano Tommy's Margarita Vampiro Vesper Yellow Bird See also List of cocktails   Liquor portal

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