One possible origin for cocktails

Precisely where the word 'cocktail' came from is uncertain. A popular piece of folklore describes how a Mexican princess called Xoctl offered a mixed drink to an American visitor to her father's court who confused her name with that of the drink itself. Another suggestion is that the spoon used for mixing drinks reminded imbibing racegoers of the docked tails of non-thoroughbred horses, called cocktails. There are many other flights of fancy, but modern etymologists mostly agree that the word derives from coquetel, a French, wine-based drink.

Whatever the origins of the word cocktail, mixed drinks have existed since ancient times and the first recognisable cocktail dates from about the sixteenth century. Indeed, many classics have been around for much longer than most people think.

The bourbon-based Old Fashioned, for example, first appeared at the end of the eighteenth century. We know that the word cocktail was already in use in 1809 in the United States and, thirty-five years later, when Charles Dickens described Major Pawkins as able to drink 'more rum-toddy, mint-julep, gin-sling, and cock-tail, than any private gentleman of his acquaintance, it had reached Britain, too.

Popular among the style-conscious and wealthy in the United States, cocktails were served before dinner in the most exclusive houses and hotels until World war 1made them unfashionable. They have in and out of vogue ever since. Following the war, young people, .i :ied by the elder generation and Desperately seeking new experiences, measures, stimuli and styles, developed a taste for a new range of cocktails.

"ircnically, Prohibition in the United States 'it She 1920s spurred on their development. Illegally produced liquor frequently tasted poisonous - and sometimes was - so its flavour needed to be diguised with fruit juices and mixers. No doubt the naughtiness of drinking alcoholic cocktails also added to their appeal the 'bright young things' of the time. The craze quickly crossed the atlantic and the best hotels in London, Paris and Monte Carlo, where the quality of gin and whisky was more consistent, soon boasted their own cocktail bars.

World War II brought an end to such revelry and, although drunk occasionally, cocktails remained out of style for decades until an exuberant renaissance in the 1970s. This resulted in another new generation of recipes, often featuring white rum and vodka, and tequila, which was just becoming known outside its native Mexico. Inevitably, the pendulum swung against cocktails again until recently. Now, once more, the cocktail shaker is essential equipment in every fashionable city bar.

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