Take a boozy trip back in time, exploring the roots of everyone's favorite social accessory: the cocktail.More
The first recorded definition of the word "cocktail" as it pertained to a liquor-based beverage can be traced back to 1806. While the origin of the word is widely disputed, cocktail connoisseur David Wondrich notes that one story attributes the moniker to the practice of administering ginger suppositories to horses, which would cause the animal to "cock up its tail and be frisky."
Another myth states that back in New Orleans, during the early years of the cocktail's birth, bartenders would use a double-ended egg cup (coquetier) as a measuring tool, and by way of the New Orleans drawl, the term "cocktail" made its entrance into the English language.
According to other sources, however, the true origins of the cocktail's story take us just a bit further back...
Wondrich affirms that punch was "the first popular mixed drink to incorporate distilled spirits." And popular it was, especially among the British East India Company's naval crowd, a thirsty bunch likely responsible for its invention. So goes the lore:
Upon discovering that beer could not withstand the temperatures of the cargo bays of the Indian Ocean, sailors began mixing rum with citrus and spices found on the shores of their exotic destinations, and punch as we know it is officially born.
Punch sees its official published mention in 1632, and by the 1650s it becomes the standard tipple of sailors and traders far and wide.