XV / 86
WHERE COCKTAILS
CAME FROM
A.
.Frenchman, Dr. Tardieu, declares that in the course
of certain scientific investigations he discovered that cock
tails, generally considered of American origin, are really
the ancient French coc^uetele, popular for several centuries
in regions of Bordeaux. Dr. Tardieu will be expeded by
Americans to produce evidence profoundly convincing.
No mere ipse dixit will suffice. It is not the first time that
foreigners have impugned the American beginnings of
the cocktail. Robert Keable declared that the mixings were
invented by the court physician of the festive Roman
Emperor Commodus. None will deny that Commodus
would have drunk cocktails if he had 'em, but Mr. Keable's
statement is not supported by Gibbon or any other dig
nified authority.
The most persistent American tradition regarding the
cocktail fixes its birth in 1779 in Betsy Flanagan's Inn
on the road between Tarrytown and White Plains, where
American soldiers with gin, and French soldiers with ver
mouth, blended these beverages in token of brotherhood,
stirring the resultant mess with the tail feathers of Mrs.