History of martini cocktail

The origins of the martini are as shrouded in mystery as the origins of the cocktail itself. Some say it first appeared in New York, others favor San Francisco. More likely is that it was named for the Martini & Rossi company. Recipes for a drink called the ‘Matinez’ appeared beginning in 1884. The second edition of Thomas’s Bar-Tender’s Guide includes one made with gin, vermouth, bitters, two dashes of maraschino, and ice.

Harry Johnson’s New and Improved Illustrated Bartenders’ Manual (1889) offered a martini cocktail recipe (gin, vermouth, bitters, curacao, gum syrup and ice) and also illustrations of two different ‘Martine’ glasses.

In the 1950s, vodka began to challenge gin on mixed drinks, including the Screwdriver, the Bloody Mary, the Tom Collins, and other drinks, particularly the vodka martini, and by the 1960s, it had triumphed.

Cocktails in the mid-twentieth century were gendered. The martini was a man’s drink in its pure form, dry and bracing, sporting an olive or a pearl onion as a garnish.

Martini glasses were gender-neutral, but only appropriate for men if the drink was clear like a classic martini, or brown like a Manhattan. Pastel drinks in martini glasses up through the 1970s were only appropriate for women.
History of martini cocktail

Bloody Mary

The Bloody Mary is a cocktail made with vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper and salt.

The creation of The Bloody Mary is a matter of some dispute,, but is generally credited to Ferdinand ‘Pete’ Petiot, a bartender at Harry’s American Bar in Paris, where he began his bartending career as a sixteen-year old in 1916.

Petiot purportedly first mixed vodka with tomato juice in 1921. After Prohibition ended in 1933, he was invited in 1933 to move to the St. Regis Hotel’s King Cole Bar in New York by the owner.

Petiot brought his recipe with him and in United States he added Worcestershire sauce and pepper to the recipe.

Petiot named the drink either after a girlfriend called Mary or after Mary Tudor, the mid-sixteenth-century Catholic queen of England.
Bloody Mary

History of Cocktail

People had been drinking mixtures of alcoholic beverages and various other substances such as fruit juices for thousands of years, but the actual process of having a cocktail mixed up in a tavern by a bartender began after the middle of the nineteenth century.

Most people agree that it’s an American invention. Other people describe that cocktails as America’s first culinary tradition.

The very first known mention of the word cocktail was found in an early American newspaper, the Farmer’s Cabinet, in April 28, 1803. It read, “Drink a glass of cocktail – excellent for the head. Call’d at the Doct’s.”

In May 6, 1806, New York newspaper, The Balance and Columbia Repository use of the term as a political stab against Democrats.

The editor received many questions about the new term, present in a concession speech from a losing political candidate, and here was his response:

“Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and butters – 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.”

A popular history suggested that the drink originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the early 1870s, where it was invented for a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (Winston mother) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden.

The success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, later prompting several people to request the drink by referring the name of the club where it originated – the Manhattan cocktail.

The origin of the word cocktail will probably never be known because there are many stories of where it came from. Rumor also has it that early in American history, bartenders used to pour remnants of drinks and almost empty barrels into single container, selling swigs from this mixture to patrons at a reduced price. ‘Cock’ was another name for spigot and ‘tailing’ is the last bit of alcohol, so his drink was called ‘cock tailing,’ quickly shortened to ‘cocktail’.

After the first cocktails sprang up in the American Northeast and have been evolving ever since. The cocktail moved west and then abroad. But regardless of where the cocktail was served, in bars, saloon or lounges, it became the icon of neighborhood gathering places and instant brotherhood.

Until Prohibition, the American saloon keeper was a prominent member of society and bartending was an honorable profession.

In 1862, Jerry Thomas, the first celebrity bartender, published the first drink recipe book to contain cocktails, How to Mix Drinks.

Initially, cocktails were drinks that men imbibed in the morning, at breakfast, to get their circulation going.

Later in the nineteenth century. Cocktails became more festive and were served as a aperitif, before-dinner drinks.
History of Cocktail

History of the Cocktail

History of the Cocktail
The origin of the word cocktail will probably never be known because there are many stories of where it came from.

These origination accounts include a woman named Betsy Flannagan putting a rooster tail in drinks (cock-tail; an American tavern keeper pouring alcohol into a ceramic rooster, then guests would tap the tail when they wanted a drink; and a possible derivation from the French word coquetel.

The very first known mention of the word “cocktail” was found in an early American newspaper, the Farmer’s Cabinet, on April 28, 1803.

It read, “Drink a glass of cocktail – excellent for the head.....Call’d at the Doct’s found Burnham – he looked very wise – drank another glass of cocktail.”

In 1806, the definition of the word first appeared in print in the Hudson, New York, publication The Balance & Columbian Repository as a political stab against Democrats.

It ran, “Cock tail is stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.”

It is vulgarity 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.”

Jerry Thomas, the first celebrity bartender, published the first drink recipe book to contain cocktails, How to Mix Drinks, in 1862.

He marveled at the inventiveness of the nineteenth century world, of which mixology was a part.
“A new beverage is the pride of the Bartender and its appreciation and adoption his crowning glory,” Thomas wrote in the 1876 edition.

The book contained several drinks that are still familiar to us today.
History of the Cocktail

The First Cocktail

The First Cocktail
The true answer is lost to history, but many stories around. Most people agree that it’s an American invention.

The earliest printed use of the term that can be verified was found in the Hudson, New York newspaper, The Balance and Columbia Repository on May 6, 1806.

The editor received many questions about the new term, present in a concession speech from a losing political candidate, and here was his response:

“Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and butters – 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.”

Here are some of the more colorful stories surrounding the creation of this now ubiquitous beverage:

Rumor has it that early in American history, bartenders used to pour remnants of drinks and almost empty barrels into single container, selling swigs from this mixture to patrons at a reduced price. ‘Cock’ was another name for spigot and ‘tailing’ is the last bit of alcohol, so his drink was called ‘cock tailing,’ quickly shortened to ‘cocktail’.

A similar story recollects a bartender who poured his dregs into container shaped like a rooster (or cock) and the tap was set at the cock’s tail, hence cocktail.

Some believe that an apothecary in New Orleans served his guests a mix of brandy, sugar, water and bitters in an eggcup or ‘cocquetier’ in French, which was quickly shortened to ‘cocktay’ and then ‘cocktail.’

Alcohol was often used as a medical treatment, rumored to be applied from the tip of a feather from a cock’s tail; then, when people started to drink or gargle the medicine outright, the name ‘cock’s tail’ was still used.

Betsy Ranagan ran an inn in Yorktown that was frequented by American and French soldiers after the American Revolutionary War. To impress her patrons one evening, she stole chickens from her neighbors and served mixed drinks with the chicken feathers sticking out as garnishes. As her guests became drunken and rowdy, they continue to call for more ‘cock tails’.
The First Cocktail