XVII / 104
WHERE COCKTAILS
CAME FROM
A FRENCHMAN, Dr.lardieu, declares that in the course of
certain scientific investigations he discovered that cock
tails, generally considered of American origin, are really the
ancient French coquetele, popular for several centuries in re
gions ofBordeaux. Dr.lardieu will be expected byAmericans
to produce evidence profoundly convincing. No mere ipse
dixit will suffice. It is notthe first time thatforeigners have im
pugned 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 byGib
bon orany other dignified authority.
The most persistent American tradition regarding the cock
tail fixes its birth in 1779 Betsy Flanagan's Inn on the road
between Tarrytown and White Plains, where American sol
diers with gin, and French soldiers with vermouth, blended
these beverages intoken ofbrotherhood, stirring the resultant
mess with the tail feathers of Mrs. Flanagan's rooster. Yet it
may be that all this happened inPeggy Van Eyck's Cock's Tail
Tavern inYonkers, as another story runs. Thegrave antiquar
ian, Isaac Markens, preferred to believe that the decoction first
sawlight as early as 1652 in the Tavern of Peter Cock, which
stood where No. i Broadway is now.
[xi]