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Cocktail's Origin
Where the bittered sling got its name
By PINK LADY
del.ico.us
reddit!
Wonder where the cocktail got its name? The answer is as riddled with hyperbole and myth as any great story told under the influence in a bar.
The first-ever reference to the "cocktail" ran in an 1803 edition of the Farmers Cabinet of Amherst, N.H. The story, a humor item purporting to be a page ripped from the diary of a "lounger," recounts a morning spent palling around with friends. Cocktailing begins at 11am: "Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head."
But what is a cocktail? The Farmer's Cabinet doesn't say. Three years later, a curious reader posed the question to The Balance and Columbian Repository of Hudson, N.Y. On May 13th, 1806, the editor printed this definition, now gospel among cocktailians: "Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called a bittered sling."
Theories abound about where the term "cocktail" originated, but the most accepted version of the story derives the term from horse racing, where a mixed-breed horse was commonly termed a "cock-tail" horse. "Bitters" were one type of popular drink, taken by sporting men of the day, and a "Sling" was quite another; this new "bittered sling" was thus something of a mixed breed, or "cock-tail" beverage. And it was most likely sipped by these sporting men as they placed bets on the ponies.
World Cocktail Week (May 6th–May 13th) kicks off in just a few short days. We'll be raising one of these in honor of the cocktail's 203rd birthday.
"OLD-FASHIONED" OLD FASHIONED
2 oz bourbon or rye whiskey
3 dashes Angostura bitters
1 tsp bar sugar
1 lemon peel
splash of water or soda
Muddle sugar and Angostura bitters in a splash of soda until the sugar is dissolved, forming a syrup at the bottom of the glass. Add whiskey and ice, and stir. Garnish with a fresh twist of lemon peel.
FOR MORE ON WORLD COCKTAIL WEEK, VISIT LUPECBOSTON.COM.
CIN-CIN!
