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A cocktail is a style of mixed drink. However, not all mixed drinks are cocktails. A cocktail usually contains one or more types of liquor and flavorings and one or more liqueurs, fruit juices, sauces, honey,milk, cream or spices, etc. The cocktail became popular after Prohibition in the United States. During Prohibition the art of mixing drinks became more and more important to mask the taste of bootlegged alcohol. The bartenders at a speakeasy would mix it with other ingredients, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. After the repeal of Prohibition, the skills developed in illegal bars became widespread and heralded the golden era of the cocktail, the 1930's. One of the oldest known cocktails, the Cognac-based Sazerac, dates from 1850s New Orleans, as many as 70 years prior to the Prohibition era.
Until the 1970s, cocktails were made predominantly with gin, whiskey or rum, and less commonly vodka. From the 1970s on, the popularity of vodka increased dramatically. By the 1980s it was the predominant base for mixed drinks. Many cocktails traditionally made with gin, such as the gimlet, or the martini, may now be served by default with vodka.
History
The earliest known printed use of the word "cocktail," as originally determined by David Wondrich in October 2005[citation needed] , was from "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803, p [2]: "11. Drank a glass of cocktail — 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."
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Mixed drink may refer to:
Cocktails, which are a one or more distilled spirits combined with drink mixers.
Mixed drink shooters and drink shots, which are small servings of cocktails in special glasses.
Beer cocktails, which combine beer with a drink mixer or distilled spirits.
Wine cocktails and punches, which combine wine (still or sparkling) with drink mixers.
Discuss.
