We all have our poison of choice when we go to a bar. From a dry martini (shaken not stirred), to breakfast mimosas, we all have that one classic cocktail that we love to sip on. However, while gulping, daintily sipping or simply downing our drinks, few of us wonder how they came to be. If you want to concoct your own signature cocktails or simply just expand your own knowledge base, finding out the origin can be an interesting exercise.
And some of them date back a lot further than you would think. The word cocktail was given its meaning as a mix of spirits, bitters sugar and water only in the early 20th century. Before that it simply referred to adulterated alcohol and even earlier, the word actually meant the tail of a horse! Some classic cocktails, though, date further back than even the derivation of its meaning.
If you’re talking about classic cocktails, the Old Fashioned seems like the perfect place to start, if only because its name lends itself to a historic spin. While the drink became a rage in the 1950s USA, its origins actually go back much further. It was in the late 1800s and early 1900s that this drink gained its popularity. The mix of borboun, Angostura bitters, sugar, water and orange peel has been tinkered with since then, with many variations coming up. But the original still remains a favourite amongst most. So much so, that it’s one of the most featured drink in the popular TV show, Mad Men.
When talking about drinks made iconic by the movie world, one can’t forget James Bond’s drink of choice — Martini. Like most other classic cocktails, the exact origin of this gin and vermouth drink is unclear. However, there are two popular theories about the drink. One traces it back to an Italian Vermouth maker in 1863 and named the brand martini. The other suggests a bartender in Martinez mixed the drink in the early 1960s and the name originated from the name of the town. Of course, it was Casino Royale and the vesper martini that agent 007 drinks in the movie that made it one of the most popular cocktails today.
The various tales about the origins of the martini nothing compared to the many claims around the classic Bloody Mary. The oldest claim to this zesty, tomato and vodka drink however goes to Fernand Petiot, who was a bartender from Canton, Ohio. It was while he was working at the New York Bar in Paris that the bartender claims to have come up with the Bloody Mary.
While one can simply go on and on about all the different classic concoctions and their murky pasts, I think it’s best to close with a concoction that is arguably the oldest of them all — the Sazerac. This New Orleans classic is a potent variation of a whiskey cocktail and cognac, which dates all the way back to the American Civil War. During this time (the 1850s), it was the Sazerac Coffee House that served this mixture of cognac, absinthe, sugar and bitters to give the soldiers a bit of a high. The coffee house was named after Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils, which is the brand of cognac that was imported. The stories around this particular cocktail are so varied and colourful, that it’s been named the official drink of New Orleans.
If one is looking to create variations of the original drink, it definitely pays to know where it originated from and the sentiments around its creation. That way, when you make your own variations, you still manage to hold on to the original essence of the drink while giving it your own fanciful tweaks.
