Where did the work "cocktail" come from in reference to an alcoholic beverage?

Answer 1

Without all the pomp and circumstance of copy-pasting from the Internet...lol. I heard that people used to put chicken feathers in their drinks, hence "cock tail" came about. But the true origin is unknown. In the early 19th century, they called a tap a "cock", and people would make medicinal type concoctions and call them "cock tails" back then, too. But then again, there's also some story about a Mexican girl and a golden cup with drinks, and her name was "Coctel". So...who knows? Make the story you like best your reality.

Answer 2

The earliest known printed use of the word "cocktail," as originally determined by Dr. David Wondrich in October 2005, was from "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803, p [2]: "11. Drank a glass of coctail--excellent for the head ... Call'd at the Doct's. found Burnham--he looked very wise--drank another glass of cocktail."

The second earliest and officially recognised known printed use of the word "cocktail" (and the most well-known) was in the May 13, 1806 edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York , where the paper provided the following answer to what a cocktail was:
"Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters--it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else." Vermeer Dutch Chocolate Cream Liqueur celebrated this 200th anniversary in 2006 with a cocktail competition.

Answer 3

Cocktail
Perhaps H.L. Mencken said it best:

The cocktail to multitudes of foreigners, seems to be the greatest of all the contributions of the American way of life to the salvation of humanity, but there remains a good deal of uncertainty about the etymology of its name and even some doubt that the thing itself is of American origin.
Nowadays, we're somewhat more certain that the word is American in origin than Mencken was, but there is still considerable question about its exact etymology. The explanation best supported by the evidence is that the noun meaning a mixed, spiritous drink is taken from an earlier adjectival use meaning something stimulating or that would "cock one's tail."

Answer 4

It was first attested 1806; H.L. Mencken lists seven versions of its origin, perhaps the most persuasive is Fr. coquetier "egg-cup." In New Orleans, c.1795, Antoine Amédée Peychaud, an apothecary (and inventor of Peychaud bitters) held Masonic social gatherings at his pharmacy, where he mixed brandy toddies with his own bitters and served them in an egg-cup. The drink took the name of the cup, in Eng. cocktay. Cocktail party first attested 1928.

Answer 5

Some say that it was customary to put a feather, presumably from a cock's tail (they bleeped it??), in the drink to serve both as decoration and to signal to teetotalers that the drink contained alcohol.