What Is a Cocktail

What Is a Cocktail? 

The official definition of a "cocktail," according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is "an iced drink of wine or distilled liquor mixed with flavoring ingredients." While that's a pretty broad definition, it reflects the modern practice of referring to almost any mixed drink as a cocktail.

The first published definition of a cocktail appeared in an editorial response in The Balance and Colombian Repository of 1806. It read: "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters." That's the accepted definition of ingredients used today when referring to the "ideal" cocktail.

The First Cocktails 

People have been mixing drinks for centuries, often to make an ingredient more palatable or to create medicinal elixirs. It wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries that the precursors of the cocktail (e.g., slings, fizzes, toddies, and juleps) became popular enough to be recorded in the history books. Though it's unclear where, who, and what went into the creation of the original cocktail, it started out as a specific drink formula rather than a category of mixed drinks.

The first published reference to the cocktail appears in the Farmer's Cabinet (Amherst, New Hampshire, April 28, 1803). The spoof editorial tells of a "lounger" who, with an 11 a.m. hangover, "Drank a glass of cocktail - excellent for the head…" In his book, "Imbibe!," David Wondrich attributes the first known printed cocktail recipe to Captain J.E. Alexander in 1831. It called for brandy, gin, or rum in a mix of  a third of the spirit to two-thirds of the water; add bitters, and enrich with sugar and nutmeg…"

The formula for the original "cocktail" recipe lives on. The brandy cocktail, for instance, is a mix of brandy, orange curacao (the sweetener), and bitters, shaken with ice (the water). Since it's served most often with a lemon peel, it's technically a "fancy brandy cocktail." Replacing the base spirit creates other classics like the gin cocktail, rum cocktail, or whiskey cocktail. 

Origins of the Name "Cocktail" 

There are many stories behind the origin of the name "cocktail." As always, some are just myths or folklore, some are believable, and more than a few may have likely been exaggerated over the years by intoxicated bar patrons or imaginative bartenders. One may even be the truth. None the less, the stories are fascinating. 

• A famous story behind the cocktail name refers to a rooster's tail (or cock tail), which served as a Colonial drink garnish. There are no formal references in written recipes to such a garnish.

•  In James Fenimore Cooper's 1821 novel, "The Spy," the character "Betty Flanagan" invented the cocktail during the Revolution. "Betty" may have referred to a real-life innkeeper at Four Corners north of New York City by the name of Catherine "Kitty" Hustler. Betty took on another non-fiction face, that of Betsy Flanagan. Betsy was likely not a real woman, but the story says she was a tavern keeper who served French soldiers a drink in 1779 garnished with the tail feathers of her neighbor's rooster. Within this complicated mix of stories, it's generally assumed that Kitty inspired Betty and Betty inspired Betsy.

• The rooster theory is also said to have been influenced by the colors of mixed ingredients, which may resemble the colors of the cock's tail. Considering the colorful array of ingredients used in the modern bar, that might be a good tale today. At the time, however, drinks were visually bland.

• In 1936, the British publication, Bartender, published a decades-old story of English sailors who were served mixed drinks in Mexico. A cola de gallo (cock's tail)—a long plant root of similar shape to the bird's tail—were used to stir the drinks.

• One cocktail story refers to the leftovers of a cask of ale, called cock tailings. The cock tailings from various spirits would be mixed and sold as a lower-priced mixed beverage of (understandably) questionable integrity.

• Yet another unappetizing origin tells of a cock ale, a mash of ale mixed with whatever was available to feed fighting cocks.

• "Cocktail" may have derived from the French term for an egg cup, coquetel. One story that brought this reference to America speaks of Antoine Amedie Peychaud of New Orleans, who mixed his Peychaud Bitters into a stomach remedy served in a coquetel. Not all of Peychaud's customers could pronounce the word, and it became known as a cocktail. Due to conflicting dates, this story doesn't quite add up, however.

The word cocktail may be a distant derivation of the name for the Aztec goddess, Xochitl (SHO-cheetl, meaning "flower" in Nahuatl). Xochitl was also the name of a Mexican princess who served drinks to American soldiers. 

It was an 18th- and 19th-century custom to dock the tails of draft horses, which caused the tail to stick up like a cock's tail. As the story goes, a reader's letter to The Balance and Columbian Repository explains that when drunk, these cocktails made you "cock your tail" up in the same manner. 

Another horse tale supposes the influence of a breeder's term for a mix breed horse, or cock-tails. Both racing and drinking were popular among the majority of Americans at the time; the name may have transferred from mixed breeds to mixed drinks.
There's a quirky story of an American tavern keeper who stored alcohol in a ceramic, rooster-shaped container. When patrons wanted another round, they tapped the rooster's tail.

In George Bishop's 1965 book, "The Booze Reader: A Soggy Saga of Man in His Cups," he writes, "The word itself stems from the English cock-tail which, in the middle 1800s, referred to a woman of easy virtue who was desirable but impure…and applied to the newly acquired American habit of bastardizing good British Gin with foreign matter, including ice." Yes, ice was once a controversial topic in the bar!

The History of Cocktail 

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· What is your earliest memory of a cocktail? Bloody Mary's on a winter afternoon at the local gymkhana, perhaps? Did you know the bloody Mary was created by an American bartender who had to move to Paris because of the Prohibition in the US with vodka made by a Russian fleeing the Bolshevik revolution? Cocktails have a long and colorful history, and many of the drinks we sip on today were created more than 100 years ago. Noted drinks historian and master distiller of Sipsmith gin (an artisan London gin), Jared Brown, says the cocktail may have originated in the 1200s when the European alchemist Arnaldus de Villa Nova refined the art of distillation and called the liquid obtained through it aqua vitae (water of life). Over the centuries, distillation underwent many further developments. And, as its use spread, the Irish (first) and then the Scots discovered usquebaugh (whisky), the French cognac and Armagnac, the Dutch and the English gin, and the Poles and the Russians voda (vodka). These modern spirits formed the base on which cocktails were built.

500-1800 (The cock’s tail)

Mixed drinks have been around since the 1500s — mulled wine, sack posset and toddy were being consumed then. But, the term ‘cocktail’ was not coined till later. There are many stories about its origins. One talks of a beautiful girl named Coctel who waited upon the king of Mexico and an American general at a peace treaty signing in the 1800s. One credits the word’s invention to Frenchman Antoine AmédéePeychaud, the creator of Peychaud’s Bitters, who would serve a concoction of the bitters and brandy as a remedy for a bad stomach in an eggcup, called a coquetier in French.

• The most popular story is about French soldiers helping Americans fight for independence in the 1770s. A barmaid named Betsy Flanagan served them drinks decorated with brightly-colored feathers from a rooster - from a cock’s tail.

• One of the first recorded appearances of the word cocktail in print was in a New York newspaper called the Balance & Columbia Repository, on May 13, 1806. A cocktail was described as “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters — it is vulgarly called a bittered sling.” Drink historians and authors Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller found the word in a 1798 edition of a London newspaper called the Morning Post & Gazetteer. It appears in reference to a politician’s debt at a pub near Downing Street.

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• The Manhattan was the first cocktail to use vermouth

1800-1900 (America’s golden age)

In the early 1800s, sazerac (rye whiskey or cognac with absinthe and bitters) and brandy crusta (cognac, Grand Marnier and Maraschino) were created in New Orleans. In the 1850s, the whiskey sour appeared. Then, the first bottles of vermouth landed on American shores and a cocktail of rye whiskey and vermouth called the Manhattan appeared. Bartender and author of The Joy of Mixology, Gary Regan says the Manhattan was the very first cocktail to use vermouth. “From it were born the martinez and the martini.”

• Early American cocktails used mainly cognac, rum or American whiskey. The only white spirit used was gin. Vodka, now the base of many popular cocktails, was not in the picture yet. In 1862, the first ever book on bar tending, The Bartender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas, was published. Thomas, popularly known as The Professor, is often called the godfather of the American bar tending industry. His book had some of the earliest recipes for homemade bar syrups, bottled cocktails and jello shots. In 1882, Harry ‘The Dean’ Johnson, another important figure in the history of American bar tending, published the Bartender’s Manual. It contained the earliest known reference to the classic gin martini, stirred, not shaken.

• The 1800s were a golden era for cocktails in the USA. Bar tending was among the highest-paying professions. Thomas was one of the most influential people in San Francisco and, reportedly, earned more than the vice president. Bear in mind that bartenders then did not have access to ready made syrups or purees; everything was prepared from scratch. The drinks they created are still drunk today.

• Even the ice used in a cocktail was given a lot of attention then. In their two part encyclopedic discourse on spirits and cocktails, Spirituous Journey: A History of Drink, Brown and Miller tell us that in the 1830s, ice blocks were carved out of frozen lakes in Boston and shipped to America’s southern states and Cuba. This ice would eventually make it all the way to Calcutta, where the British would use it to chill their wines and beers. Tell your local bartender that the next time he behaves miserly with ice.

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• A protest march against Prohibition in Newark, in 1931

1900-1933 (Crossing the Atlantic)

The cocktail industry lost momentum when the Temperance Movement swept the United States in the early 1900s. It led to prohibition in the USA, which outlawed the sale, consumption, production and transportation of alcohol in the US, and lasted from1920 to 1933. Bootlegged alcohol became popular, and many distillers left the big cities to distil in forests or in Canada and then smuggle the alcohol back into the US. This gave rise to a phenomenon called rum running, which referred to the bootleggers trying to evade the excise officers. Many of America’s first NASCAR racers were rum runners during the prohibition.

• America’s famous bars were replaced by illegal ones, called speakeasies. While some bartenders found other careers, some migrated to Europe and took jobs in bars in big cities such as London and Paris. Very soon, American drinkers who couldn’t do without their old fashioned and martinis sought out these bars. Thus, London and Paris got their first ‘American bars’. Bars at glitzy hotels, such as the Savoy, in London, or the Ritz, in Paris, became a mecca of cocktails.

The Bloody Mary

In 1917, a vodka distiller named Vladimir Smirnov, fleeing the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, arrived in France. In 1920, he started producing and selling vodka in western Europe under the French spelling of his name, Smirnoff. A year later, a simple drink consisting of vodka and tomato juice caught the fancy of cocktail drinkers at a Paris bar named Harry’s New York Bar. Very soon, flavorings such as Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco were added to the recipe, and thus was born the bloody Mary, arguably the first vodka cocktail ever mixed.

James Bond made the martini popular 

1933-1990 (Vodka takes over the world)

Prohibition ended in 1933, but the second world war meant times remained tumultuous for the liquor industry in the US. It was only after it that vodka entered America. It had its work cut out to find footing in a country that guzzled copious amounts of beer, whiskey and rum. At the time, rum-based Polynesian Tiki cocktails, such as the mai tai and planter’s punch, were all the rage in North America.

• In the 1950s, some young Americans took to drinking vodka mixed with ginger ale, a drink called the Moscow mule. Then, in 1962, a certain British spy announced to movie goers on both sides of the Atlantic that he liked his martinis with vodka, shaken, not stirred, and vodka was the new favorite ingredient in cocktails. More cocktails have been fixed with vodka than any other spirit in the past two decades.

• Dale Degroff, aka King of Cocktail, invented the cosmopolitan

The Cosmopolitan

In 1979, a Swedish vodka brand called Absolut entered the US. Seven years later, it launched the world’s first flavoured vodka, Peppar, flavoured with pepper, and followed it with one flavoured with lemon (Citron). In 1990, famous New York bartender Toby Cechinni fixed a drink at his bar (Odeon) consisting of Absolut Citron, Cointreau, cranberry juice and lemon juice. Mixologist Dale Degroff, also known as King cocktail, made the same drink for pop diva Madonna at his bar in New York and added a flambéed orange peel to it. Thus was born the Cosmopolitan.

Martinis in the land of the Patiala Peg

In India, a new breed of professionally qualified bartenders has emerged and is experimenting with fresh ingredients, home made syrups, dainty garnishes and drinks that focus on a balance of flavors. Bars such as PCO, in New Delhi, Cocktails and Dreams, in Gurgaon, Blaq - A cocqtail affair in New delhi, Wink, Ellipsis and The Daily in Mumbai, have advertised fine cocktails as their unique selling point.

1990-2000 (Quantity over quality)

The emergence of bar chains, such as Thank God it’s Friday, in the early 1990s, somewhat corrupted the cocktail. Instead of finely crafted drinks served in sleek glassware, there were quickly put-together mixes served in crude pitchers. Customers got value for money, but the art of mixing drinks was nearly lost. 

Salvatore Calabrese created the breakfast martini

2000-2013 (The renaissance)

The past 13 years or so have seen the creation of modern classics, such as the breakfast martini (a gin martini with marmalade), invented by Salvatore Calabrese at the Library Bar in London, and the appearance of artisanal bars, such as the Milk & Honey in New York.

• Matthew Pomeroy, the global brand ambassador for Absolute Vodka, says the past 10 years has seen a rebirth of artisanal drinks. “A new focus on freshly-squeezed juices and fresh herbs has elevated the art of bar tending to a new level,” he says, “while the internet and reprints of old cocktail books allow modern bartenders to read and research the old classics.”

• Cocktails have come a long way since the first time they were mixed. They have helped the food and beverage industry to grow, created employment and, most importantly, have helped people bond. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sip on my old fashioned while I read The Deans of Drinks, a book about two early 1900 bartenders Harry Johnson and Harry Craddock.

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL

Last July, I was in the city of jazz, New Orleans, presenting a seminar on India’s native brews at Tales of the Cocktail, an annual event that celebrates the craft of cocktail-making in a week of seminars, workshops, tasting events and competitions. Achievements in cocktail-making are recognized through scholarships and award ceremonies. And, of course, the event hosts some of the most sought-after cocktail parties on the planet. The first TOTC was held in September 2003, when a group of cocktail enthusiasts and industry veterans spent two days visiting New Orleans’s historic bars, one of which, the Napoleon House, opened in 1797. In 2012, the 10th edition of TOTC drew around 20,000 professionals and consumers from across the world.

The question of the cocktail

What actually is a cocktail? What does the word mean and where did it come from? I think that these are some valid questions, considering that I have enjoyed cocktail hours, menus and the drinks known universally as “cocktails” for many years.

The actual answer

It is now a well-known fact that the word “cocktail” was first defined in 1806 by The Balance and Colombian Repository of Hudson, New York as “a stimulating liquor composed of any kind of sugar, water and bitters, vulgarly called a bittered sling.” Most cocktail aficionados might recognize that formula from drinks such as the Old Fashioned and Sazerac. Some geeks out there might even be aware that before the invention of bitters, cocktails were known as “slings,” which comes from the German word “schlingen,” meaning to swallow quickly. The first time the word “cocktail” is recorded as being used in the U.S. was on April 28, 1803 in a publication called The Farmers’ Cabinet and in the UK there is a reference to the “cock-tail” even earlier in The Morning Post and Gazetteer in London, England on March 20, 1798. Could the cocktail be an English invention? The Punch was, after all. Not that any of this really matters, anyway, because the word cocktail has been misused for many years now. It is used as a header for the entire category of mixed alcoholic drinks, whether they are highballs, punches, fizzes or sours.

The old answer

The fact that we now have this knowledge about where the cocktail came from fascinates me. When I was bar tending many moons ago, the story of its origins was surrounded by mysticism and fables. I was told that the word came from New Orleans, where it was derived from the French word “coquetel,” an eggcup that was used for serving drinks. There was also a story of a drink being decorated by a cock’s tail and served in celebration to soldiers of the revolution by Betsy Flanagan. There was even a reference to drinks in Mexico being stirred with a “cola de gallo” (cock’s tail).

Today’s answer

Today, the word “cocktail” is used to describe the collective group of mixed alcoholic drinks that we see on bar menus around the world. There was a point when they were, even more incorrectly, called “Martini lists” (a Martini is in that is chilled and mixed with vermouth, with the optional addition of bitters. It is not anything that is served in a cocktail glass that many referred to as a Martini glass — this is something that may have gotten lost in translation during Prohibition). The hospitality industry has taken a giant leap forward in relearning knowledge on the subject over the past 10-15 years, and most professional and informed bartenders now understand a cocktail to be something made of spirit, water, sugar and bitters. My belief is that this knowledge is going to continue to grow until we are once defining drinks as Jerry Thomas did in 1862 in the first cocktail book ever written, How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant’s Companion. In fact, some bars already do. Of course, as long as people make good quality drinks with great spirits and fresh ingredients, they are perfectly entitled to call them whatever they wish as far as I’m concerned. I must admit, however, that I am always impressed with some historical wisdom and understanding and the word “cocktail” just sounds better than anything else.

List of I.B.A. official  Classic cocktails 

The Unforgettable 

1. · Alexander
2. · Americano
3. · Angel Face
4. · Aviation
5. · Bacardi cocktail
6. · Between the Sheets
7. · Casino
8. · Clover Club
9. · Daiquiri
10. · Derby
11. · Dry Martini
12. · Gin Fizz
13. · John Collins
14. · Manhattan
15. · Mary Pickford
16. · Monkey Gland
17. · Negroni
18. · Old fashioned
19. · Paradise
20. · Planter's punch
21. · Porto flip
22. · Ramos Fizz
23. · Rusty Nail
24. · Sazerac
25. · Screwdriver
26. · Sidecar
27. · Stinger
28. · Tuxedo
29. · Whiskey Sour
30. · White Lady

Contemporary Classics

1. · Bellini
2. · Black Russian
3. · Bloody Mary
4. · Caipirinha
5. · Champagne cocktail
6. · Cosmopolitan
7. · Cuba Libre
8. · French Connection
9. · French 75
10. · Godfather
11. · Godmother
12. · Golden Dream
13. · Grasshopper
14. · Harvey Wallbanger
15. · Hemingway Special
16. · Horse's Neck
17. · Irish coffee
18. · Kir
19. · Long Island iced tea
20. · Mai Tai
21. · Margarita
22. · Mimosa
23. · Mint julep
24. · Mojito
25. · Moscow mule
26. · Piña colada
27. · Rose
28. · Sea Breeze
29. · Sex on the Beach
30. · Singapore Sling
31. · Tequila Sunrise

New Era Drinks 

1. · Barracuda
2. · Bramble
3. · B-52
4. · Dark 'n' Stormy
5. · Dirty Martini
6. · Espresso Martini
7. · French Martini
8. · Kamikaze
9. · Lemon drop
10. · Pisco Sour
11. · Russian Spring Punch
12. · Spritz Veneziano
13. · Tommy's Margarita
14. · Vampiro
15. · Vesper
16. · Yellow Bird

Vinod Gharti                                                               Follow me : Instagram as FLAIRBLAIR