HISTORY of CockTails

Legend has it that the cocktail was invented by Betsy Flanagan, an Irish inn-keeper in America. She created exciting mixtures of drinks which she served from bottles gaily decorated with the tail feathers of roosters.

A French customer is said to have raised his glass to toast the wonderful drink he was enjoying and declared: “Vive le cocktail!” giving the mixed drink its name.

The name could also have been derived from “cock-ale”, which was a mixture of alcoholic drinks fed to fighting cocks to give them courage.

Whatever their origin, cocktails came into their own during the American Prohibition years of the 1920’s and 30’s. Illicit “moonshine” stills often produced liquor of very dubious quality, and these concoctions sometimes needed all the help they could get, to make them palatable. This led, naturally, to a wide range of interesting mixtures, some of which (like the Martini and the Manhattan) earned immorality as classic cocktails.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1993, the standard of liquor improved enormously, but cocktails had come to stay as an essential part of sophisticated life.

Today there are literally thousands of different cocktails, and each of them has its local variations. Whatever the experts may claim, there is no right or wrong way of making a particular cocktail. Cocktail enthusiasts will urge their friends to go to this or that bar, “where Ernie mixed the greatest dry Martini in the world.” Obviously Erie’s recipe is likely to be slightly different from anybody else’s. And this is the magic of the cocktail.

Shooters are relative newcomers to the drinks’ scene. Invented in the 90s by crafty Canadian barmen to keep out the chill during the long winters, they are attractively layered drinks, consisting of various spirits and liqueurs, poured gently over the back of a spoon into a small shot glass, so that the colours form distinct layers.

Shooters are designed to be swallowed in a single gulp, so that all the flavours meet only in the mouth. They’re to make and drink, and require a steady hand to keep the layers properly separated. 

Source: Make Your own Cocktails by David Biggs