In 1862, in the middle of this growth, a colorful figure named Jerry Thomas entered the scene with a book and a mission. The book was How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion. It was a compilation of recipes from around the country and Europe, using spirits and wines in many categories of mixed drinks. The mission was to popularize the sprit-based mixed drinks Thomas had dedicated his life to compiling. Buried in the pages of this groundbreaking book with the flips and sangarees was a small category called “Cocktails and Crustas.” The cocktail, true to the definition of fifty years before in The Balance and Colombian Repository, was a strong spirit, a sweet ingredient, and bitters. Only thirteen cocktails and crustas were listed in the book along with 223 other concoctions, so it was a relatively small category. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the word “cocktail” had become the generic word for all mixed spirit drinks.
