Elite life

Cocktails

 

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   The official definition of a Cocktail according to the modern Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "an iced drink of wine or distilled liquor mixed with flavoring ingredients". That's a pretty broad definition, but reflects the modern practice of referring to almost any mixed drink as a Cocktail. The first published definition of the Cocktail appeared in an editorial response in The Balance and Columbian Repository of 1806. This read: "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters." It is this definition of ingredients that still refers to the "ideal cocktail".
   People have been mixing drinks for centuries but it wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries that the precursors of the Cocktail (the Slings, Fizzes, Toddies and Juleps) became popular enough to be recorded in history. It's unclear where, who, and what went into the creation of the original Cocktail, but it seems to be a specific drink rather than a category of mixed drinks during that time.
   The first published reference to the Cocktail appears in the Farmer's Cabinet (Amherst, New Hampshire, April 28, 1803). The spoof editorial tells of a "lounger" who, with an 11 a.m. hangover, "...Drank a glass of cocktail - excellent for the head..." In Imbibe!, David Wondrich attributes the first known Cocktail recipe in print to Captain J.E. Alexander in 1831 who calls for brandy, gin or rum in a mix of "...a third of the spirit to two-thirds of the water; add bitters, and enrich with sugar and nutmeg...".
   Cocktail is a word that usually reminds of spirits mixed together with other ingredients to create an alcoholic drink. Aside from the alcohol, many considered leftover ingredients nothing more than a complement. This conception belongs to the past : long ago, non-alcoholic cocktails stopped being understood just as fizzy drinks with fruits and raspberry lemonade and now they are viewed as considerate moves of artists behind bar counters, making the best use of the results of food industry revolution, the tricks of capturing scents and colors, make them last and thus to create original cocktails that raise our choice at the bat counter and enrich our life.
 
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