1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book

COCKTAILS

Most of the people one meets in places where Cocktails grow have an id a that they know the origin of the word " Cocktail " ; none of them, however, agree as to what that origin is, and in any case they are all wrong, as they always put that origin somewhere between sixty and seventy years ago, whereas in The Balance, an American periodical, of May 13, 1806, we read that : " Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered slin^ and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion." This is the earliest reference to the Cocktail that I have been able to find in print. Historians have been misled by the word " Cocktail " into imagining that it was once in some way connected with the plumage of the domestic rooster. But this is not so. The true, authentic and incontrovertible story of the origin of the Cocktail is as follows :— Somewhere about the beginning of the last century there had been for some time very considerable friction between the American Army of the Southern States and King Axolotl VIIT of Mexico. Several skirmishes and one or two

HISTORICAL NOTE

13

B1