Cocktail Recipes

Cocktail is a short mixed drink made of two or more ingredients. Cocktail - an appetizer served as a first course at a meal. A "cocktail" is not just a single predominate flavor, but it is a careful balance of flavors that form the basis of a cuisine. So a cocktail with just a single ingredient, is really not a cocktail. And a cocktail made with a spirit that is officially "tasteless, odorless, and colorless" (vodka), is nothing that even closely resembles a cocktail, much less a Martini.

When I'm looking through a cocktail book, I am always trying to find out if this author provided any insights as to the origins of the cocktails that they write about. Some do, but most don't. I suppose cocktails can often be a hard origin to track down, unless they are named after the person or establishment that actually invented them.

The earliest known written reference to the term "cocktail" as a drink based on spirits with other spirits and/or other additives goes back to an early American magazine called "The Balance", published in May 1806.

Cocktail is 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.

As another story has it, the term came into use at a bar in an American harbor; the owner had a large ceramic container in the form of a rooster (cock). Every evening, the leftovers from drinks served were poured into this cock. Less economically fortunate guests could for a cheap price get a drink from this cock, served from a tap at the tail. From this came the term cocktail. It was said, that the quality was especially high the day after English sailors had been visiting, as there was a good mixture of rum, gin and brandy in the cocktail.

There are different types of Cocktails available some of them are defined below:

Bullshot - a cocktail made with vodka and beef bouillon or consommé

Daiquiri, rum cocktail - a cocktail made with rum and lime or lemon juice

Gimlet - a cocktail made of gin or vodka and limejuice

Grasshopper - a cocktail made of crème de menthe and cream (sometimes with crème de cacao)

Harvey Wallbanger - a cocktail made of vodka or gin and orange juice and Galliano

Manhattan - a cocktail made with whiskey and sweet vermouth with a dash of bitters

Margarita - a cocktail made of tequila and triple sec with lime and lemon juice

Martini - a cocktail made of gin (or vodka) with dry vermouth

I doubt that we will ever know the true origin of this term, but is that what is really important? Would knowing which (if any) of the above stories teach us anything new about the history of the cocktail, or perhaps are the diversity of the various stories themselves that have cropped up over the years the real history lesson here?