Cocktail
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"Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else." | "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else." | ||
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==Historical References== | ==Historical References== | ||
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"Now it would appear that the medical profession is to have the invention of that | "Now it would appear that the medical profession is to have the invention of that | ||
ques-tionable American institution, the ' cocktail,' fathered upon it..." | ques-tionable American institution, the ' cocktail,' fathered upon it..." | ||
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| + | ==="Dictionary of Americanisms", By John Russell Bartlett, 1860=== | ||
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| + | "Cocktail - A stimulating beverage, made of brandy or gin, mixed with sugar and a very little water." | ||
Revision as of 21:14, 18 September 2006
A Cocktail is a catch-all term for mixed alcoholic drinks. However, at one point in time, the word Cocktail referred to a specific type of mixed alcoholic drink.
First Recorded Use of the Word "Cocktail"
The earliest known printed use of the word "cocktail" was from "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803, p [2]: "11. Drank a glass of coctail--excellent for the head ... Call'd at the Doct's. found Burnham--he looked very wise--drank another glass of cocktail."
Earliest Known Definition of the word "Cock-tail"
In the May 13, 1806 edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York , where the paper provided the following answer to what a cocktail was:
"Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else."
Historical References
"Three Years in Canada: An Account of the Actual State of the Country in 1826-7-8", By John Mactaggart, 1829
"Nevertheless, let what the people of the States of America call cocktail be fully analyzed - let us pry into the wonderful mysteries of Bitters."
"Lawrie Todd: Or, the Settlers in the Woods", By John Galt, 1849
"Cocktail, a, a dram of bitters."
"Hesperos: Or, Travels in the West", By Matilda Charlotte (Jesse) Fraser Houstoun, 1850
"Their "custom of an afternoon," was to prepare and drink a favourite compound, which went by the name of "brandy-cocktail." The avowed object was to stimulate their appetites for dinner, (though for this there appeared no absolute necessity,) and as it seemed to have the desired effect, I may as well add, for the benefit of other weak and delicate individuals, that brandy-cocktail is composed of equal quantities of "Stoughton bitters" and Cognac."
"Notes and Queries", by William John Thomas, et al, 1850
"Now it would appear that the medical profession is to have the invention of that ques-tionable American institution, the ' cocktail,' fathered upon it..."
"Dictionary of Americanisms", By John Russell Bartlett, 1860
"Cocktail - A stimulating beverage, made of brandy or gin, mixed with sugar and a very little water."
