Cocktails, esoteric mixes capable of conquering all palates at the first taste: for their extreme versatility and for the ability to absorb all the potential of the ingredients used, without any limits. Today is the day dedicated to them, World Cocktail Day. The history of mixed drinks with shakers, strainers and bar spoons is not that old. According to the expert of mixed drinks Fulvio Piccinino, there are four versions that revolve around their birth.

Where does the name cocktail come from?

The first and most accredited one claims that the barman John Schiller at Sazerac Coffee in New Orleans served the oldest cocktail – the sazerac – in egg-shaped glasses: the Coquetelle, from which the name Cocktail derives. The other three instead connect the etymology of the word to that of cock tail, or rooster tail. According to a variant, the American bartender Betsy Flanagan served colorful drinks, hence the name “rooster tail,” another claims that during a cruise on the Mississippi a bartender prepared cocktails with rooster-shaped decanters, and the fourth and final claims that a bartender used rooster tail feathers as stirre.

It is May 13, 1806 – hence the choice of the international day – when the word cocktail was first written. «The "Cocktail" is a stimulating drink composed of various types of spirits, sugar, water and bitters». This is the definition given in the New York newspaper The Balance and Columbian Repository, not at all unchanged over the years, given the recent growth in consumption of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol cocktails, prepared with dealcoholized bases, substitutes for traditional spirits. 

The first guide with cocktail recipes

Fifty-six years later, in 1862, the first guide containing cocktail recipes was published. It's about How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant's Companion by the Expert Mixologist Jerry Thomas. Cocktails are distinguished from the other drinks mentioned by the presence of bitters. An absurdity, if you think about how today these are absolutely not a priority within a recipe for it to be defined as a cocktail. Although their consumption is coming back into fashion, in this context.

Throughout history, always according to Fulvio Piccinino, there were then several factors and moments that changed the course of these drinks: the arrival in 1893 of Phylloxera in Europe, a parasite of vines that caused a significant mortality of the plants, and that of ice and industrial soda. Phylloxera forced a rethinking of cocktails by reducing the presence of wine-based distillates/spirits, such as vermouth, which became elitist; ice and soda, on the other hand, allowed the spread of a fresher, lighter and more fizzy drink.

Prohibition

In the history of cocktails, there have also been many difficult periods, due in particular to the prohibition of alcohol consumption. The most important historical moment that we can remember is certainly that of Prohibition, which existed from 1920 to 1933. During this period, the manufacture, sale, importation and transportation of alcohol in America were banned and the famous speakeasies were born, places where alcoholic beverages could be consumed illegally. Often there was a password to be pronounced at the entrance, in order to be able to get hold of alcoholic mixtures of almost always poor quality, obtained from contraband products, primarily gin and rum.

The IBA is born

Twenty years later, in 1951, was born the International Bartenders Association (IBA), organization that protected and still protects the most important recipes of classic and contemporary cocktails throughout the world. Although cocktails are not immutable, just like cuisine, the birth of theIBA It was fundamental in cataloguing the recipes and making them known throughout the world. The first list dates back to 1961, with 50 drinks, while the latest, published in Italy in March 2024, boasts 101 recipes. Reading it, you can take a trip back in time.

Today, mixology has evolved a lot. Cocktails are no longer what they used to be and we often look to the past to innovate. In speakeasies, but also in modern cocktail bars.