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A cocktail is a style of mixed drink. A cocktail usually contains one or more types of liquor and flavorings, usually one or more of a liqueur, fruit, sauce, honey, milk or cream, spices, etc. The cocktail became popular during Prohibition in the United States primarily to mask the taste of bootlegged alcohol. The bartenders at a speakeasy would mix it with other ingredients, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. One of the oldest known cocktails, the Cognac-based Sazerac, dates from 1850s New Orleans, as many as 70 years prior to the Prohibition era.

Until the 1970s, cocktails were made predominantly with gin, whiskey or rum, and less commonly vodka. From the 1970s on, the popularity of vodka increased dramatically. By the 1980s it was the predominant base for mixed drinks. Many cocktails traditionally made with gin, such as the gimlet, or the martini, may now be served by default with vodka.

Carbonated beverages that are used nearly exclusively in cocktails, include soda water, tonic water and seltzer. Liqueurs are also common cocktail ingredients.

History

The earliest known printed use of the word "cocktail," as originally determined by Dr. David Wondrich in October 2005, 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."

The second earliest and officially recognised known printed use of the word "cocktail" (and the most well-known) was in the May 13 1806 edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York , where the paper provided the following answer to what a cocktail was:

"Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called a 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 anything else."

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, although it is not to be seen in very many modern cocktail recipes.

During Prohibition in the United States (1919-1933), when alcohol possession was illegal, cocktails were still consumed in establishments known as speakeasies. Not only was the quality of the alcohol available far lower than was previously used, but the skill and knowledge of the bartenders would also decline significantly during this time.

Etymology

There are several plausible theories as to the origin of the term "cocktail". Among them are:

Colonial taverns kept their spirits (rum, brandy, whiskey, gin, applejack) in casks, and as the liquid in the casks lowered, the spirits would tend to lose both flavor and potency, so the tavern keeper would have an additional cask into which the tailings from the low casks could be combined and sold at a reduced price, the patrons requesting the "cock tailings" or the tailings from the stop cock of the cask. This was H.L. Mencken's belief.
Cocktails were originally a morning beverage, and the cocktail was the name given as metaphor for the rooster (cocktail) heralding morning light of day. This was first posited in 2004 by Ted Haigh in "Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails", and can be distinguished from the theory "take two snips of the hair of the dog that bit you", which refers to consuming a small bit of alcohol the morning after a "binge drinking night" to curb the effects of the symptoms of the hangover, which symptoms are actually the result of a mini-withdrawal/down-regulation effect.
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. However, some also say otherwise.
Another etymology is that the term is derived from coquetier, a French egg-cup which was used to serve the beverage in New Orleans in the early 19th century.^[1]
The beverage was named for a mixed breed horse, known as a "cock-tail" as the beverage, like the horse, was neither strictly spirit nor wine - it was a mixed breed.
The word could also be a distortion of Latin [aqua] decocta, meaning "distilled water".
Non-alcoholic cocktails are referred to as being "Virgin Cocktails", free from the "sin" of alcohol consumption. They are also known as "mocktails" in India and parts of the United States.

Notes

^ Stanley Clisby Arthur Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em (Pelican Publishing Company, June 1977), ISBN 0-88289-132-4)

Derivative uses

The word "cocktail" is sometimes used figuratively for a mixture of liquids or other substances that are not necessarily fit for consumption. For example, the usage of such a word could be as follows: "120 years of industry have dosed the area's soil with a noxious cocktail of heavy metals and chemical contaminants".

External links

[1] Stanley Clisby Arthur Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em (Pelican Publishing Company, June 1977), ISBN 0-88289-132-4)

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 *[[Cocktail stick]]
 *[[History of alcohol]]
+*The [[Ladyboy (Drinks)|ladyboy]] drinks combination - where the cocktail is mixed in the stomach, nor before ingestion as with most cocktails.
 ==Derivative uses==