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The Birth of the Cocktail
The most popular alcoholic beverage in the world to
day is that high-powered mixture known as the Cocktail.
For a century and beyond this stimulating drink has
served to elevate dejected spirits. Born, nurtured, and
christened on this side of the Atlantic, it has overflowed
its original boundaries, especially since the World War,
and today even staid British taste, long wedded to his
toric brandy and soda, is beginning to find satisfaction
—and something else—in the Yankee mixed drink.
Why is a cocktail called a cocktail.? Why should the
rear adornment of a chanticleer be identified with so
robust a libation?
The origin of the cocktail and its singular naming
have long been veiled in mystery. One legend sets forth
that the French-speaking people of Old New Orleans
had a word for a favorite drink, and that word event
ually was corrupted into "cocktail." Other and more
fanciful legends have found circulation from time to
time but here are the facts concerning the birth of the
cocktail and how it received its inapposite name.
In the year 1793, at the time of the uprising of the
blacks on the portion of the island of San Domingo then
belonging to France, wealthy white plantation owners
were forced to flee that favored spot in the sun-lit Carib
bean. With them went their precious belongings and
heirlooms. Some of the expelled Dominguois who
flocked to what was then Spanish Louisiana brought
gold to New Orleans. Others brought slaves along with
their household goods. Some brought nothing but the
clothes they wore upon their backs. One refugee suc-
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