About Pocket Cocktails

A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink. Most commonly, cocktails are either a single spirit or a combination of spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, shrubs, and bitters. Cocktails vary widely across regions of the world, and many websites publish both original recipes and their own interpretations of older and more famous cocktails.

The origins of the word “cocktail” have been debated. The first written mention of “cocktail” as a beverage appeared in The Farmers Cabinet, 1803, in the United States. The first definition of a cocktail as an alcoholic beverage appeared three years later in The Balance and Columbian Repository (Hudson, New York) May 13, 1806. Traditionally, cocktail ingredients included spirits, sugar, water and bitters; however, this definition evolved throughout the 1800s to include the addition of a liqueur.

In 1862, Jerry Thomas published a bartender’s guide called How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion which included 10 cocktail recipes using bitters, to differentiate from other drinks such as punches and cobblers.

Cocktails continued to evolve and gain popularity throughout the 1900s, with the term eventually expanding to cover all mixed drinks. In 1917, the term “cocktail party” was coined by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri. With wine and beer being less available during the Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933), liquor-based cocktails became more popular due to accessibility, followed by a decline in popularity during the late 1960s.

The early to mid-2000s saw the rise of cocktail culture through the style of mixology which mixes traditional cocktails and other novel ingredients. By 2023, the so-called “cocktail in a can” had proliferated (at least in the United States) to become a common item in liquor stores.
In the modern world and the Information Age, cocktail recipes are widely shared online on websites. Cocktails and restaurants that serve them are frequently covered and reviewed in tourism magazines and guides. Some cocktails, such as the Mojito, Manhattan, and Martini, have become staples in restaurants and pop culture.

Queen Mary, a North American cocktail, made by combining beer, grenadine and Maraschino cherries The term “cocktail” can refer to a wide variety of drinks; it is typically a mixed drink containing alcohol.

When a mixed drink contains only a distilled spirit and a mixer, such as soda or fruit juice, it is a highball. Many of the International Bartenders Association Official Cocktails are highballs. When a mixed drink contains only a distilled spirit and a liqueur, it is a duo, and when it adds cream or a cream-based liqueur, it is a trio. Additional ingredients may be sugar, honey, milk, cream, and various herbs.

Mixed drinks without alcohol that resemble cocktails can be known as “zero-proof” or “virgin” cocktails or “mocktails”.

The first “cocktail party” ever thrown was allegedly by Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1917. Walsh invited 50 guests to her home at noon on a Sunday. The party lasted an hour until lunch was served at 1 p.m. The site of this first cocktail party still stands. In 1924, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis bought the Walsh mansion at 4510 Lindell Boulevard, and it has served as the local archbishop’s residence ever since.

During Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933), when alcoholic beverages were illegal, cocktails were still consumed illegally in establishments known as speakeasies. The quality of the liquor available during Prohibition was much worse than previously. There was a shift from whiskey to gin, which does not require aging and is, therefore, easier to produce illicitly.[31] Honey, fruit juices, and other flavorings served to mask the foul taste of the inferior liquors. Sweet cocktails were easier to drink quickly, an important consideration when the establishment might be raided at any moment. With wine and beer less readily available, liquor-based cocktails took their place, even becoming the centerpiece of the new cocktail party.

Cocktails became less popular in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, until resurging in the 1980s with vodka often substituting for the original gin in drinks such as the martini. Traditional cocktails began to make a comeback in the 2000s,[33] and by the mid-2000s there was a renaissance of cocktail culture in a style typically referred to as mixology that draws on traditional cocktails for inspiration but uses novel ingredients and often complex flavors.