The practice of mixology was gifted to us by some curious minds, but how it got the name ‘Cocktail’ remains debatable till date. We’ve got a bunch of historians and dedicated-drinkers theorising that it was inspired by racehorse tails and even old Aztec princess’.
Ahead of Cocktail Day (May 13th), we decided to walk back in time and look back at some of these wacky-ily interesting theories.
Many seem to agree that the first-ever cocktail was invented by apothecary Antoine Peychaud. Mixing up brandy, absinthe, bitters, and sugar – the famed Sazerac cocktail was Peychaud’s brainchild. It’s said that he used to serve the Sazerac in eggcups that he called “coquetiers” in French. And then Americans did the most American-thing and mispronounced the word as “cocktay”, went on to popularise it as “cocktail”.
The historical accounts of cocktails do not end here.
Spirits scholar David Wondrich conducted exclusive research on this subject and gave us one of the oldest trace-able links to the etymology of Cocktails – Horse Tails.
If you thought that’s weird, the story gets even weirder.
Back in the 19th-century, shady tradesmen would try to get the best price for their horses by making them look extra lively. This was achieved uncomfortably by stuffing up a piece of ginger or pepper up the posterior (butt) of the horse.
Ouch, right?
The immediate reaction to the ginger and pepper is the horse’s tail perking up like that of a cocks tail. So, the racehorse’s tails were often referred to as cock-tails if they seemed to be all lively and energetic.
Functioning on a similar idea, a drink adulterated with ginger, pepper, or any other flavours made the drink a lot livelier and the drinker perkier.
While these two theories have been the widely-accepted understanding on why Cocktails are named so, there has been a multitude of other theories on how the word originated.
So, this cocktail day, you can have your share of fun with your friends and family by getting drunk and coming up with absurd theories on how the name came up.
Here’s a few already existing theories to get you started:
- An Aztec noble had once ordered his daughter Princess Xochitl to serve a mixed drink to a guest. Her name somehow entered the language and got tweaked as ‘cocktail’.
- West African’s kaketal, meaning ‘scorpion’, which, like a cocktail, has a sting in its tail.
- Coquetel was another term for a mixed drink in Bordeaux, which got Anglo Americanised into ‘Cocktail’.