From Manhattans to Mojitos and everything in between cocktails offer exciting and varied flavors for every palette. If you’re a cocktail connoisseur chances are you already know most of the basics about these drinks like that it’s the addition of a third ingredient that sets them apart from two-ingredient mixed drinks. However one fact that eludes mixologists and amateurs alike is how the word “cocktail” came to be. It’s a complicated question with more than a few possible answers but with a drink in hand we can draw some likely conclusions.
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 TL;DR | 2023-02-24 22:30:06 |  192 Views |
Where does the word "cocktail" come from?
One theory is that in ancient times the dregs of several liquor barrels were thrown into a glass to serve as a sort of tavern end-of-day special. The combination of the barrel tap known as a "cock" and the dregs of liquor known as "tailings" created "cocktailings" which eventually evolved into "cocktail." Others propose that "cocktail" is an Americanized version of the French word coquetier which refers to an egg cup. As the story goes Antoine Amédée Peychaud the inventor of Peychaud's Bitters used an egg cup to serve mixtures of brandy and bitters. Coquetier was pronounced "cocktay" by Americans and subsequently converted to "cocktail."
As interesting as these stories are the most compelling hypothesis about the origin of the word "cocktail" has surprisingly little to do with actual drinks. According to the Oxford Dictionary a "cocktail" originally referred to a horse whose tail had been cut so that it stood upright like a chicken or "rooster." Because these were working horses that typically had their tails docked rather than thoroughbred racehorses "cocktail" came to mean a horse of mixed blood. Eventually people began using the term to refer to mixed drinks.
The word "cocktail" was occasionally used to describe drinks in the early 1800s but it wasn't officially defined until May 13 1806 in a column in the newspaper The Balance and Columbian Repository. In a response to a reader curious about the term the newspaper's editor wrote "Cocktail is a stimulating beverage composed of spirits of any kind sugar water and bitters" (via Difford's Guide ). Initially a cocktail was specifically defined as a drink made with sugar water and bitters but over time it came to encompass a variety of other recipes.
