Cocktails: Word Origin

In England the word “cocktail” was used to describe a horse of mixed breed but high quality that had a docked tail to distinguish it from thoroughbreds. In the early nineteenth century the word was used as slang to refer to soldiers who exhibited unsoldierlike or cowardly behavior, as a soldier faced with danger “turning cocktail.” An intriguing quote attributed to Samuel Johnson would predate all previous stories of the origin of “cocktail” as a word for a mixed alcoholic drink: “To mix spirits to wine smacks of our alcoholic hyperbole. It would be a veritable cocktail of a drink.” Antoine Amédée Peychaud, who created Peychaud’s bitters at his apothecary shop in New Orleans, served cognac and bitters to guests in his shop in two-sided eggcups called coquetiers. The word sounds similar to the word “cocktail” in English.