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OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK
of these authors sheds any light upon the origin of the
term.
"The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles
says that the origin of the word
cocktail
is lost.
In
this con–
nection, one writer refers to the older term
cocktail,
mean–
ing a horse whose tail, being docked, sticks up like the tail
of a cock. He adds: 'Since drinkers of cocktails believe
them to be exhilarating, the recently popular song,
"Horsey, keep your tail up," may perhaps hint at a pos–
sible connection between the two senses of "cocktail." '
"Bartlett in his 'Dictionary of Americanisms' gives the
following:
'Cocktail'-A
stimulating beverage, made of
brandy, gin or other liquor, mixed with bitters, sugar and
very little water. A friend thinks that this term was sug–
gested by the shape which froth, as of a glass of porter,
assumes when it flows over the sides of a tumbler con–
taining the liquid effervescing.' He quotes the following
from the
New York Tribune
of May 8, 1862: 'A bowie–
knife and a foaming cocktail.'
In
the Yorkshire dialect,
cocktail
described beer that is fresh and foaming.
"Brewer, in 'A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,' follow–
ing the definition of
cocktail,
adds the note: 'The origin
of the term is unknown. The story given in the
New York
World
(1891) to the effect that it is an Aztec word, and
that 'the liquor' was discovered by an Aztec noble, who
sent it by the hand of his daughter Xochitl to the King,
who promptly named it "xoctl," whence "cocktail," is a
good specimen of the manufacture of etymologies.'
"As you will see from the foregoing," Dr. Vizetelly
.concludes, "altho many theories have been advanced as to
the etymology of the term
cocktail,
these, like most ety–
mologies of the kind, are mere flights of fancy, and while